for me, in my era, it has to be appetite.. we were around 10 or 11 when that came out and it was lightning, taboo, forbidden fruit. Borrowing my older sisters 80's tapes like Cory Hart, Falco, Brian Adams as my intro to rock and pop etc,,,, This peeled my face off!
I’m a senior citizen. When you shared your memories of you & your father listening to each other’s music and creating a bond forged in Rock, you were telling the story of the bond between my son and me. I’d take him to see classic rock (my son called it “before they die tour) and I’d listen to his music as I fixed snacks for him and his friends & explained the influence that I heard in his music if they asked me . I wasn’t the Cool Mom. However, I was the Smart Mom who could fix snacks, chat, then LEAVE!!! My son & his friends turned out great. They tell me that they share music their kids. Music brought our families together. The Circle Is Unbroken 🤘🎸🎧
I love this post. I played a game with my two daughters in the car when they were young. I’d play classic rock and they would either have to tell me the band or the song. If the guessed correctly, I’d switch the radio to their music (90’s pop). I’d have to figure out the song or band to be able to switch back to my music. My youngest daughter loved this game. I would talk to her about the classic rock songs. I’d tell her listen to the lead singer’s voice (David Lee Roth’s scream, Steve Perry’s voice and style, Robert Plant’s overall genius, Glenn Fry’s grittiness as opposed to Don Healey’s smoothness and Lou Reed’s poetic verse,etc.) and listen to the sound of the instruments. She learned the riffs of Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, and Jeff Beck. She saw how John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Wanda Jackson influenced early rock and roll musicians. Now, this child of mine loves all music as much as I do. She has learned and shared her insights with me on every genre of music. She will send a song to me so we can talk about the style, the way it makes us feel, etc., and I do the same with her. She listens to everything from Mississippi Blues to Taylor Swift, and can tell you something unique about it all. You can ask her the lyric of any Beatles song, and she can sing it and tell you what album it’s from. She is doing the same thing with my grandson, and he loves it. She makes this music loving mom proud!
I am positive this album saved my life. The Appetite for Destruction album, in cassette form, kept me awake on many late-night drives between US Navy training base NAS Memphis in Millington, TN, and my hometown of Kansas City, a roughly 565 mile drive, one way. I'd leave Millington around 3:00PM (I could leave earlier if I donated blood) and be in Kansas City at midnight, having run through this album multiple times. I'd turn around and do it again, heading back early Sunday afternoon, hungover and dreading my training. Thanks for keeping me awake and on the road, GNR!
Its still a kickass album...and the original cover for Appetite was awesome....1 of best albums I ever bought I'd say if not the best ...glad I got 2 see them twice during the illusion tours
My dad took me to see GNR in Newport Bay, CA in 1991. Skid Row opened up for them on the Use Your Illusion Tour. I was 11 years old then and I am now 43 and looking back I feel super privileged to have seen them. Thanks for the memberberries and history lesson.
I caught that myself, at Hershey park of all places, skid row were really impressive,and the show was perfect, at the top of there power, highlight,probably estranged, but it was all amazing!
I was 20 yrs old in 1987. I was with my buddy, drinking beer at home, and watching Headbangers Ball. I saw Welcome to the Jungle and I’ll NEVER forget how awe struck I was at this monster band! I knew they were going to be huge and it wasn’t due to the video. That riff, those words and that overall sound was infreakincredible!!!!
I was 15 in 1987, I was visiting my dad in Simi Valley that summer (I’m from Michigan) and I would always put my cassette Walkman on and just walk around the town, went to a record store and Appetite for Destruction just came out that day, I got that cassette and god damn if I didn’t walk around like I wanted to fight just listening to that album, Welcome to the Jungle had me wanting to break shit, flex, fight, act like a fool… what a great fkn album that was/is.
I was going down on my girlfriend and got busted by her mom. We composed ourselves and turned on MTV; this was a Sat.night/Sunday morning. Changed our lives.
But without that video being played at all in MTV, would we know them? It's not the actual video or what's in the video, it's the fact that that we know gnr BECAUSE of a video, it really could've been anything in that video and it probably would still be the same effect
My dad was a mail carrier in the mid to late 80s. One day he came home with a box of 4 CD's from a Columbia house wannabe. These packages were sent as bulk mail, meaning he was told to throw them out if undeliverable. We had just got our first home CD player and I listened more than anyone in the house so I was all about new music. The CD's were Depeche Mode - Some great reward, Elton John - Live in Australia, Dire Straits - Brothers in arms and of course GnR - Appetite for destruction. I was new to Depeche Mode and GnR and never heard such dark subject matter at 11, but holy hell did that expand my horizon and made me the metal enthusiast I am today.
I was 14 living in SoCal when this album came out, you couldn't go anywhere without hearing one of it's songs every 5 minutes from cars driving by or radio stations you were listening to or even watching Mtv. It was like that for over 2 years, it was EVERYWHERE. One of the greatest albums of the 80's, and maybe even one of the best albums of all time.
Appetite change life when it hit. 30+ years later, it still rocks hard and the songs are timeless. They struck lightning in a bottle with that release.
I still put in earbuds, go out to the garage to work on shit, grab a beer and crank Appetite all the time! Been listening to it since 1988 and will never stop
I hadn't heard of them until I saw them open for Motley Crue in November of 87, and afterwards I was absolutely obsessed. I managed to get my hands on a dubbed tape that was only the first side on both sides of the tape, and would listen to it over and over again at night with the hair standing up on my arms throughout. It was ECSTATIC. Then I finally got the whole thing, and my mind was blown all over again. Rocket Queen is a seriously underrated tune of theirs. Great video. \m/
You really do an amazing job of telling the stories of musical artists. The love for the music (& for your Dad) resonates and its just a feel good channel.😊 Guns & Roses came to Wellington NZ a few years back. I couldnt go to the concert as I had to work. My day at work was one I just wanted to forget. Feeling down I walked through the light rain back to the hostel where I was staying and headed to the shower to wash my day away. As I got into the shower a sound drifted through the window from the stadium a few kilometres away. Guns and Roses jamming out on a song for a solid 10 mins. I felt all the tension in my life just melt away to the sound. Even though I couldnt go, its an amazing memory. I listened to the rest of the concert from my room, feeling blessed.
I had just moved to Hollywood the year before Appetite was released. A guy moving into our apartment building loaned me a copy on tape. The first time I heard it, I was blown away, and assumed it was a "greatest hits" album from a band I'd never heard of. Still one of the most astonishing debuts ever -
Still one of my top 3 favorite albums of all time hands down. Even after all of the years of bullsh^t that happened with GnR, nobody can deny the impact that this first album made on the music industry and future bands to come. I've always loved the lyrics for their songs and they really were ahead of their time compared to everything else that was out at the time. Man I still remember sitting on my old electric kit when I was learning how to play Mr Brownstone, I'd spend hours upon hours playing. I had my old I-Pod plugged into the brain on the kit with my headphones, man that was SO much fun. Once the I-Pod broke I used my laptop, but I remember seeing the "times played" section on the playlist eventually a few months later. By this time I had this entire album on lockdown, I could play it from "Welcome to the Jungle" to "Rocket Queen", but the most played song "Mr Brownstone" said it was played 2117 times, lol. I couldn't read music, so I'd play to ear and also watch videos of other people playing it or whatever song I was trying to learn. I'd hear little symbol hits or toms that I was missing when I'd be driving around, and I couldn't wait to get home so I could update the way I was playing it. Unfortunately it's been years since I've played music, ended up having to get rid of my kit when I loved out of state, smh. It's been years since I've played but I really want to start jamming again, definitely need something new to do in my life on my downtime.
WORD! I can go from ABBA to Enya to Iron Maiden in listening succession without even thinking about it LOL! It's all music to my ears no matter the genre!
14 years old, up all night watching MTV (this were the days), and I got to witness this video being played for the first time. Within hours I scraped up enough money to buy the album. Only problem, there wasn't a record store anywhere near me that had it in stock. Everyday for the next few days I would go up to the record store and check. Finally it arrived. It would be a solid year before it came off my record player. Mind blown!!
A friend of mine dubbed the Appetite tape for me, even though I had never heard of them at the time. Little did I know, it would eventually be HUGE! My dad didn't want me listening to hard rock / heavy metal, but he never forced me to stop. He didn't even like Bon Jovi, because they were too "hard." LOL! I just throw everything together, from disco to pop to Rnb to hard rock to boy bands to girl bands, etc... and I call it "top 40." It's all the same to me. I can go from "Paradise City" by GnR to "My Heart Belongs To Me" by Barbra Streisand without even thinking about it. It's all one genre to me: "TOP 40." 😎
This is totally why our generation has such a diverse appreciation of musical styles. Like you, I love going through a top 40 from a random week and just absorb the variety of massive talent on display. Even music I didn't much care for back then stand out in retrospect, particularly in this era of puerile auto-tuned nonsense.
@@babygerald4645A former neighbor of mine, who is a generation older, one told me she now likes songs that she hated when they were out, because they are from her time. 😅 I now understand!!!
@@BillGraper Totally! I have to credit Adam here at POR for being so enthusiastic and offering great stories behind bands and songs that I passed over either because my tastes hadn't developed or I had a limited budget to fulfill my musical desires. I first watched one of his clips about one of my favorite bands back during lockdown and the knowledge he dropped convinced me he'd done plenty of research. After that I was hooked. Now my CD shelf, dormant for so long, has started to expand again in all kinds of directions to the point where I've run out of space. Beach Boys, Black Sabbath, Hall & Oates, Herbie Hancock, Iron Maiden, Kate Bush, Def Leppard, Howard Jones, Tears For Fears... all of these are post-2019 additions thanks to vids featured here.
I was in 8th grade when appetite was released and it changed my life. It introduced me to a whole new genre of music as my dad wasn’t a metal fan. I grew up listening to 50’s doo wop which gave me an apparition for that but I was hooked appetite has been my go to for over 40 years now. To think the most influential album in my life was almost buried in obscurity. I can’t imagine my life without it.
LOL, it always amazes me how diverse musical tastes are. I absolutely detested this band growing up but I won't criticize anyone for what they like. I'm in a band so I can appreciate that some people think we suck but others like us. Taste is personal, not right nor wrong. Happy listening. :)
I remember watching Head Bangers Ball and hearing it for the first time, it may have even been the first time it was played because I remember the VJ announcing them as a new band. I went out and bought the cassette within a few days, I was stationed in Southern California at the time and the record store had some copies. I couldn't believe how good the whole tape was, I listened to it almost non-stop for like 5 months and had almost burned myself out on it before anyone I knew back home had even heard any of the songs. It really was mind boggling that it took so long to take off!
What a great story! Thank you. To answer your last question: I suspect I was one of those people who first saw that single late night play of that song on MTV. I couldn't sleep and I turned the TV on in my room in the middle of the night to the lowest volume which could still allow me to listen without waking my brother on the other side of the room, and I watched MTV in the night. And that video came on...and blew my 10 year-old mind.
There are two moments in my life I remember in more detail than anything. Watching the live footage as 911 played out and the first time MTV played Welcome to the Jungle. I looked at my buddy and told him GNR were going to be huge.
same thing for me with the first welcome vid.. I called several times the next day demanding they play it again... I still think it's the best straight up rock and roll album ever released.
MAN! I was there in 1987 when this song came out, and have been a GNR mega fan since. Yet I still learned new things in this video. Great job Professor!
My best friend's brother was in the military, he heard of them early. When the cd came out I went to the music store with her to get it. I was 15 & into pop & glam metal. Appetite changed that forever. I went rock from then on. To this day I'm a metal head, with a little gangster rap sprinkled in.
This album literally changedy musical direction as a kid. I was into the more pop laden 80's sound of artists like Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston etc etc. Then I heard Guns N Roses and the rest as they say, is history. I still listen to all that great pop music of the 80's, but metal has and will always have my heart and G'N R is a big reason why. This album was everywhere!
I was the opposite - I hated 80's pop and pop rock and was into thrash metal like Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus, Testament, etc, but when I heard Appetite For Destruction I thought it was the best hard rock album I heard since Back In Black, and it got me back into raw bluesy hard rock again and after that I began to grow out of thrash metal, which was much more one-dimensional.
Love the video. I’m from the neighborhood (Washington Heights)in nyc where they ran into the homeless guy . We are very proud of our contribution 😅 to rock music.
I bought Appetite when it first came out. Me and four friends rode around in my car all night listening to it over and over again. We were blown away. Definitely one of the top 25 rock albums ever.
I never wrote band names on my trapper keppers but I did have a pair of JNCOs in high-school that I wrote a bunch of bands names I liked on them. There were names like Ozzy, Cash, GnR, Slioknot and Creedence just to name a few. That ended up being my favorite pair of JNCOs. They stayed in rotation as I wore them one day a week to school even though I had a bunch of jncos. The "music" pair got the most wear. Love your channel man and what you're doing. Keep up the good work.🤘
This album is basically the soundtrack of my life in 1987 and on through the next few years. I'm not 100% sure, but I think every song on this album has been played to some degree on the radio, they are all great. It's hard to find a debut album by anybody that is this good beginning to end. Each song reminds me of particular parts of my life from those days, what an amazing album
I remember hearing about this band that was banned, couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, when I did, loved every song on it, had both cassettes and over played them for years 🤟
@petercena9497 😳OK, you can go stand in the corner. You're put on Rock God's time out list. You didn't just put Hootie in the same vicinity as Guns N fucking Roses? I can only think of ONE Rock band that's better than GNR. That's Led Zeppelin. Other than that Metallica is 3rd. You can argue over who make its in top 5 after that. Never disrespect GNR man. You'll only anger the Rock God's.
I forged a bond with my Dad with music. My Dad woke me up early every day by blasting Flying High Again by Ozzy. I used to start talking about all the awesome concerts that I had been to and then he would talk about seeing Hendrix and Sabbath,Zeppelin,The Doors and on and on. He had me on the concert thing big time.
It really surprised me to hear about the struggle to get "Welcome to the Jungle" airplay, especially from MTV. The first time I heard of 2, now American entertainment icons, was at the movies. The scene in "The Dead Pool", where a talking corpse (I don't think he could afford much food) was filming a music video. Jim Carey was the corpse (he may have been playing a corpse), and when you hear that cringe-worthy howl in WTTJ, Carey was rising to sit up in bed, mouth wide-open. "Welcome to the Jungle" was so memorable to me, that I can replay that scene in my head, and I haven't seen but once, 35 years ago. GNR got a lot of airplay on the deck speakers aboard a small 135' fishing boat on the Bering Sea that was my second home for the 80s & 90s
This is the only album I heard before a band broke big. First year in college in a radio production course and the others were talking about the L.A. music scene and played Welcome to the Jungle in our studio. I was hooked and got the album. A few weeks later, GnR was everywhere.
Welcome the Jungle is one of those song will never forget. As a young Marine in 1989 I've heard that song a bunch of times and I rocked out to it . But 1989 me and my fellow Marines flew in to our first mission off the coast of Liberia, Africa. Our mission, was to secure the US Embassy while the country was in a brutal civil war. The door gunner on helicopter had a boom box (remember those) and was playing that song as we flew in from the ship onto the American Embassy. What a moment. The uncertainty ,the raw emotions, the head games in my brain. That song got me so pumped. I will never forget it! Music and the place we are in our life is essential to ones being. Every time I hear Welcome to the Jungle it takes me back to that young 20 year old kid's adventure. Keep rocking. Thanks GNR!!!!! 😜
A decade after the album released, I first heard Paradise City in my freshman football locker room and was immediately addicted, fast forward 30 years later, I still hear the song leaving work every so often on one radio station while all the main stations in my city have morning talk shows. Nothing beats dropping the windows and cranking the volume up at 7am in rush hour traffic. Also, I'm extremely jealous of your hover board in the background.
Kickass recollection of your Dad! I hope my 2 sons will have that same recollection in their thoughts of my record collection.....that they play LOUD!!
Brings me right back to my USMC days, that album hit just before I deployed aboard the USS New Orleans to the western Pacific. It was playing constantly on just about every boom box on the ship for 6 months. I cant hear anything from that album without thinking about walking through the hangar deck and other spaces on the ship. the only place I could go and NOT hear it, was on the flight deck where boom boxes didn't work, you couldn't plug them in and wouldn't be able to hear them anyway.
I was lucky enough to have gotten to see them in 2017 on the not in this lifetime tour with Axle, Slash and Duff together again, at the Gorge Amp. Theater in the desert 2 hours east of Seattle, WA. There was a raging wild fire behind the Gorge that night and GNR was almost the last band to play that venue. The smoke filled air added to GNR's incendiary 3 1/2 hour long performance. Axle had to run back stage between songs for water and to ice his throat, but the band kept playing, even paying respects to Chris Cornell who had just recently passed away. It was by far the best concert I have ever been to.
This is an Army record for me. One of those huge records that came out during my enlistment that guys in the barracks were blasting from speakers into the common area.
This is the only band that I still remember hearing for the first time. I was 13 and my friends older brother was playing this insane music in his room. That's all it took for me to love it. 🔫 & 🥀
I saw Guns at the Ritz in NYC on Friday and Saturday when MTV broadcast the show live in 88, I recorded both shows on VCR and went to both shows, with the band I was in at the time, Crown of Thorns, place was packed, Great show from them, high energy.
Brilliant retelling of an untold story I wouldn't have believed.A resonating tale when fact is stranger than fiction and revealing an enormous sliding door moment .
I had the cassette with the original artwork. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen on an album cover. There was not a bad song on the entire album. They were all great tracks with no filler.
The crazy Robert Williams banned artwork ? What'd that look like shrunk to cassette size?( I was like 19 then we all collected cassettes,lol)where are those billions of nearly useless cassettes now?
In the late 90’s I had a friend who ran a trivia show at a local bar outside of Atlanta. He loved GnR and the song Night Train. He located a source and ordered a case and shared with the entire bar! It was great and awful and great at the same time! He died in a car crash but what a great memory! Miss you Chad! Thanks Professor!
The first time I heard this song was when I saw the video for it on MTV for the first time. I was immediately addicted. I literally went out right after and bought the album. One of the best decisions I ever made.
I remember seeing the video when it first aired on Headbanger's Ball. Went to Sam Goody to get the cassette the next day. Employees at Goody's never heard of the band. I think I was the first to buy the cassette ever at the store.
The more I listened to that album the more I liked it. The lyrics are so interesting in every song and that phrase Welcome to the Jungle is still being quoted today to describe scenes of chaos and danger. GNR seemed to be a group of really good musicians who truly had an Appetite for Destruction.
I have had 3 dogs since this album came out. First one was a Rottweiler named Brownstone second a mutt named Duff and my current German Shepherd named Axle. I guess the album and the band had a little effect on me.
Christmas 1988, I was 12 and got my own cassettes for the first time. Appetite of course, plus Paula Abdul Forever Your Girl and Robert Palmer Heavy Nova. Quite a diverse mix that I remember fondly.
The first time I heard Welcome to the Jungle on MTV, it blew me away. I can remember thinking, "Now this is f*cking rock'n'roll!" There is only one other band in my life that blew my mind and solidified me as fan from the very first listen, Metallica. GnR is the epitome of rock. Dirty, grungy, nasty, and yet soulful. It was a moment in time that I will never forget.
I first heard it on a coach trip home from a Sunday School trip! One of my friends persuaded the church leader to play the cassette over the coach audio system. Suffice to say, it was quickly switched off. But I found my way back to it. A monumental record.
GNR & Metallica were the first groups I chose to listen as an early teen back in the 80s, I had asked my aunt's boyfriend for some cool music, he gave me a copy of appetite for destruction and a mix tape of Metallica, those two cassettes got a lot of playtime.
Of course MTV was vital for getting your music out to the masses. Hearing a song on the radio, you may never learn who sings it or how to find the album, but the videos printed the name of the band and the album title as well as the song title, making it much easier to find. There's songs I've been looking for for years, decades even, and still don't know who performed them. Love your stories about your dad. My dad couldn't stand this kind of music. My mom on the other hand enjoyed it so much she actually took me to the Guns 'n' Roses / Metallica concert.
I was working in Saudi Arabia and during a trip home to Cincinnati, I was listening to the local rock & roll station. I was the 10th caller into the station to win tickets to a GNR & Aerosmith festival. I had not heard of GNR, since R&R radio in Saudi Arabia was non existent. The craziest thing was that I thought I had just won tickets to the show, but when the commercials were over I found out I won the second of two chauffeured RV's to the festival for six people. I immediately went out and bought the GNR cassette tape. When I got into the RV and we started heading for the show, the first tape in the deck was the GNR tape. The show was great and the radio station staff rode with us on the trip home since we were the bigger partiers than the other RV group. GNR and Aerosmith blasting on the stereo the whole trip and at the festival. What a blast of an experience that was!
I still remember the first time I heard “Welcome to the Jungle.” I was fourteen and all of a sudden it was number one on Mtvs dial up MTV. This from that point I was hooked and GnR has had a profound impact on my like. And yes my dad liked them too. The only other band to have this effect on me was when I saw Metallica opening up for Ozzy in 86. When I heard Cliff’s bass solo I knew what I wanted to do. Unfortunately I was too chicken shit to chase my dreams.
I lived in LA (Hollywood) during this era - and worked across the street from the Troubadour - Sunset Blvd after dark was just electric in that time - the music was literally everywhere.
The first time I heard G n' f'n R I was instantly blown away. Appetite for Destruction was everything rock n' roll should be. Raw, loud, explosive, piss your parents and your pastor off unbridled mayhem. It's what cigarettes and tattoos would sound like. And you can't forget the surreal image of the rock star played by Jim Carrey of all people lip synching to Welcome to the Jungle in the Dirty Harry movie The Dead Pool.
My first time for Welcome to the Jungle was on MTV Top 5 at 5. As soon as I could I went out and picked up the CD, listened to every song and was blown away. I knew it was going to be huge. Thanks Adam!
All of us kids LOVED them. They were fantastic. No one could stop them once they went off. Then they rocketed to stardom! Who could deny Slash! or Axl? The entire OG lineup was truly a phenom.
My sister and brother in law just went to see Guns n Roses last Wednesday! The show was kind of in question because there was some issue with the venue. The show was moved to a second venue and went on anyway 😊 They played with Alice in Chains, and my sister only texted me a clip of AiC. But she said the show was fantastic and they played ALL of their songs! Not only did they jump through hoops to not cancel, but they gave their all for the fans! 👏👏👏
@@ProfessorofRock an amphitheater up in Phoenix. I forget which one. They were originally slated to play at a ball park which was needing to be used for playoffs now 😊
I remember the constant play on MTV. I never knew of the difficulty the band had getting that time! Also loved that memory you told of your dad enjoying the album. My dad and I never shared any musical interests except the national anthem at ballgames, but that was enough for us.
Guns n Roses MESMERIZED me the first time I heard them. Welcome to the Jungle felt like the perfect hard song. But, as much as I liked them, I was sure the band would never be accepted by the masses nor their music played on the radio. When MTV aired their show at the Ritz one weekend at midnight, I watched and recorded it. I wore that VHS tape out! As controversial as they were then, today you can't attend any major event (sports, etc.) without hearing them. Thank goodness!
Truth is, after my friend Gordie gifted me his copy (which the song titles and everything had rubbed off of, so he dug in with a ball point pen to etch side I and side II...still have this tape), i was moving far away from him, and my friends, and my voice and guitar teachers, so i was understandably angry, yet exhausted... So my first listen was several starts between naps during the long drive. My dad even asked how i can fall asleep during such heavy music, and i remember saying that it wore me out...but it also invigorated me during my rest, and inspired me in ways i had never felt before... When you're 12, that hits...it defines you...
Certainly ONE of the greatest debut albums. Personally, I really like Music From Big Pink (The Band), The Slim Shady LP, My Generation (The Who), Licence To Ill (Beastie Boys) Are You Experienced (Hendrix), The Clash, The Ramones, Nevermind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols, Is This It (The Strokes) and Straight Outta Compton (NWA).
I remember laying on the living room floor, watching MTV on a weekend sleepover with my cousin when that song played the first time; we had stayed up all night eating popcorn, drinking Coca-Cola, and jolt, cola and playing dungeons and dragons, like kids of our generation we were awake at 4 AM on Sunday morning.
My absolute favorite band of all time. When I finally got my copy as a kid, I had to sneak it in the house and listen to it so my parents couldn't hear. They were like nothing I had ever heard and I listened to it front to back all the time. It's one I can listen to every song and sing all the lyrics, to this day almost 40 years later. It changed my musical direction forever. Most dangerous band in the world!
I had a similar experience. I was 7. I got my copy at a swap-meet (My mother let me go off my own while she shopped). I had to listen to it with headphones on my walkman. My mother would have thrown it away if she heard it. Just like she did my garbage pail kids collection - still mad about that! Anyway, I wore that tape out. Bought it again later on CD, the first CD I ever owned.
I remember watching MTV that Saturday night/Sunday morning. Me and some friends where debating whether to party on or crash. After that song we stayed up till Sunday night. KEEP ON BRINGING BSCACK BROTHER. Thanks man
AFD has amazing riffs, amazing vocals by Axl, great solos by Slash, perfect drumming from Steven Adler and punk vibe bass from Duff... but Izzy's rhythm guitar work is something that glued all this things together. Slash's and Izzy's guitar work ( very easy to hear it cause of perfect production by Mike Clink) is maybe the best hard rock guitar duo ever.
I love that the Cincinnati Bengals latched onto this song as it both makes sense for the team's mascot, AND the high energy of the song is perfect for hyping up a crowd! 🐅 🏈 🎶 👏
When you said what song it was, I literally said "Are you fucking KIDDING ME?!" 🤯 I was Gen X, so I didn't watch much MTV until the mid 90s, and by then Welcome to the Jungle was a common song on MTV. Crazy
I heard it by accident on a pirate radio station that came on late at night and only played Guns & Roses and then it would go off air again. This was in Los Angeles and at the time, NO ONE was playing their music. I was glued to that radio station nightly.
Brother-In-Law's FAVORITE plugged into an old recording for when he raced Moto-Cross...JUST CRANKED AND YANKED AND ROCKED THE TRACK AHEAD OF ALL, ALL THE TIME. One bright Sunday after church, he revved-up the bike and blared "Welcome to the Jungle" one last time as he was did a wheelie and overcompensated when hitting a rock in on the blacktop country road; and fell-off giving his whole back side one huge road rash landing him in ICU with major infection and sepsis for a week. Never raced again and have no idea if he ever listened to 'Welcome to the Jungle' again.
The most '80's image I have ever seen, which I immediately set as the lock screen on my phone, is an alternate version of Appetite's cover. In place of the band member's faces, it has the faces of the Constructicons from Transformers and instead of "Appetite for Destruction" it says "Appetite for Construction". I love it so much and it's pretty much my childhood in one image.
Great background information (that's what makes your channel) - but I guess this album has seminal moments in all of us - "you know where you were when you first heard it..."
It was just before high school when this came out. It remember it being bigger than anything at the time. We really were spoiled for music back then. Not on topic, but I also remember when T2 came out and a local radio station hijacked the airwaves. One day, I turned on the radio and heard You Could Be Mine...when it was over the DJ came on and said, "that was your number one requested song for the 8th time in a row". They continued to play that song and nothing but that song for the rest of the day. Last time I checked it was at something like 82 playbacks. It was an epic day, and sadly something that could never happen now.
I had just turned 8 years old in 1990, and my Mom's family was visiting on summer vacation. This included my Mom's younger brother Shane, who is only 4 or 5 years older than me. While I was sitting upstairs in the living room, Shane came in wearing an "Appetite for Destruction" t-shirt. The image scared the hell out of me, but I was intrigued so I asked him about it. We then all (me and my two brothers) went down to the basement where he was staying and he played the cassette for us. We spent that whole night just listening to GN'R. Before that, the heaviest song I'd ever heard was "Steppin' Stone" by the Monkees or "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf. I was an instant fan. My favorite song on the album was Nightrain, but I also love Patience off of the Lies tape (which Shane also had). That visit lasted about two weeks, and I was also introduced to the likes of Iron Maiden and Motley Crue. I can easily point to that incident as the moment that changed my musical trajectory, as before that I was into MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. Now, about a week after my Mom's family went home, I got into quite a lot of trouble for singing "Used To Love Her" in the car. Mom wasn't happy about those lyrics.
Imagine the ramifications in pop culture had Welcome to the Jungle not been a success on that MTV time slot 😱 I had this album but I kept it in my car because my parents didn't want me to even own it 😂 that's why I'm so jealous that you had an awesome dad that liked GnR.
The first time I heard this song was in music class. A classmate brought it in and my teacher let it play. Yep, I had the coolest teacher who let it play without stopping the song. Thank you, Mrs. Garrett... Wherever you are.
The Seattle trip was to play at the Rock Theater. A friend of mine lucked out and saw them. They became instant legends in the PNW music scene. You should do a video on that venue, incredible place.
Once blacklisted. Then cut to October of 2023 and I am watching a high school marching band open their halftime show with "Welcome to the Jungle." Amazing.
Guns n Roses is incredible and the stuff they have been through over the years is something you wouldn't put into a movie as it wouldn't be believable... Love the first album! It is just a classic after classic it is insane. It was top tier rock-'n'-roll and still is. With all the attitude in the world.
The death of glam-rock !!! I dont even know how many appetite for destruction cassette tapes i went through back then. I love my generation, much love to all of you my brothers nationwide...
I was 15, working at a restaurant as a dish washer when one of my co-workers came in and said," You got to hear this band". He handed me his walkman and pressed play on Welcome to the Jungle...dude....wow
I remember bringing Appetite home when I was 14. I bought it when I was out with a friend. My mother saw the album cover and took it away from me. She saw 5 skulls on a cross and she wasn’t having it. I eventually got it back, but my mother didn’t want me playing it when she was home.
When GNR blew up they had already been my fave band for months In fact I was on my second cassette because I had already worn out the first I was over at my best bud's (RIP)house and his uncle came to visit He tossed the still wrspped tape to my friend and said "Hey listen to this and tell me if it's any good, I don't know who they are but the cover looks cool" We popped it in and even before the opening scream was finished I looked at my friend and said "This is the greatest band ever!!" And I've felt the same since
I grew up in a small rural town in NEBRASKA. In 1986 I bought Live Like a Suicide for $4.95 from a really crappy music store (the ONLY crappy music store in town).Exactly how a copy of a 5000 printing record like that landed in my hometown I'll never know. I was 16 years old. I was completely blown away. I spent so much time and effort trying to get my friends and classmates to give it a listen. The same guys who listened to Motley Crue all day everyday would just dismiss the band..."Oh they look like a bunch of f*gs" etc etc. So when Appetite was released I picked it up in Omaha on a family trip to relatives. I stood in a line of exactly me to buy it. I had my walkman..ha remember those? Anyway I didn't get to listen to it until the two hour drive home. I'd been waiting over a year for this to come out and of course I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I still remember halfway through my first listen of Night Train I started yelling "OH MY GOD ROCK AND ROLL ISN'T DEAD" My dad wasn't amused but I was so stoked. Here was a band of my generation that not only didn't suck but were as good as the bands of history that made rock and roll great. Again I beat my head against the wall of hickville inhabitants trying to get people to listen. And then MTV told them it was ok to like them. For weeks all the same people who told me Welcome to the Jungle sucked six months prior were "Hey man you heard this new band Guns and Roses? They are so great" blah blah blah. There is also a small part of me that wonders what their second album would have been if MTV had never aired WTJ.
I remember hearing Welcome To The Jungle on an small FM station broadcasting far away across the river in Osceola Ar. In Memphis you could only pick that station up late at night. The next day I went to a record store in Memphis, Pop Tunes, and searched for the album. Couldn't find it. I thought the radio DJ had introduced the band as "God Sent Roses". Just as I was about to walk out of the store the clerk comes running up to me with a copy of Guns And Roses. Yep that was the one! I went home and recorded it to a cassette. Funny thing though, none of my friends accepted it until many many months later when it started getting air play on the Memphis rock station and MTV. Same thing happened with Nirvana. They thought my Nirvana cassette was ridiculous until about a year or so when it finally broke out in heavy rotation on the local radio. To me the first time I heard GNR and Nirvana was like the first time I heard Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption".
great video - i wish we had YT back then :) I have always said that Appetite For Destruction is one o fthe greatest albums of all time and I stand by that today
The switchboard at MTV literally caught fire that night. The telephone equipment was old and antiquated. Old switchboards literally sparked when phone calls would come in, hence the small fire at MTV. Awesome!
I saw guns and roses in October in Edmonton Alberta with my parents and I was blown away by the band playing all the songs that we have listened to for years and I was like wow
I'd seen a picture of them in a rock magazine, months before I actually heard them. They were the roughest bunch of dudes I'd ever seen and they terrified me. Then, one day our local metal station - 97 Underground - debuted "Welcome to the Jungle". It blew my mind and I was instantly hooked. I had copies of "Appetite" on cassette, CD, vinyl - both the cross cover and the banned cover. They were just so raw, unpolished, and different from most of the music released at that time.
I remember the first time I heard this song. I was a regular in a biker/ construction worker/ real cowboy bar in Colorado. It came on the juke box and I was blown away. I asked the bartender who this band was and she asked why do like it? I said something along the lines of hell yeah this real rock and roll. She was shocked cause I was nortious for only liking 60’s and 70’s rock
My experience with GNR started with seeing a NYC performance in a bar in Portland, ME on their big screen TV. I went to my local record store (as opposed to the mall) to get an album. It was the banned album copy. A friend also came into the store and we left to get coffee. I went back a couple days later and the album had been pulled for the cover. I went to Boston on a road trip and bought a bootleg cassette of their Boston show of that same NYC show. I listened to it and was an immediate fan. I made the trip back to the local music store and bought a copy of the album Fast forward a couple of years and I had moved to Boston. I was working in a store during the day and working as a stage hand for a couple local bands (one broke up two days after signing a contract with a label, another, their drummer moved away and now has 4 Grammy’s I believe on his shelf, but another story for another time). I am working and I get called from 2nd floor to office. I walk down the corridor and right up to Slash. He is obviously unmistakeable but I walk by him. I find out what the problem is. It had been an excuse to let me see Slash. I return to work and Slash is up there. He knew the layout of the store and where we kept the Good (as in unique) T-shirts. I offer help and actually look into his eyes because I didn’t want an autograph, but to find out if he was a real person or just plastic like some musicians I had met. He was real. His assistant shows up with a few items that they buy. That night I tell the producer / guitarist I was working with about my adventure with Slash. He tells me a wild story about two guys named Jeff and Billy that he had known back in Indiana. That concert (GNR at Sullivan Stadium) had been cancelled close to time of show due to a dumb stunt done by a morning crew on a Boston radio station while Slash had been out shopping for jeans and a t-shirt. I learned more about the band members by not going to their show and working for a producer that knew more than he let on to even his own bandmates.
My memories of G'N'R? I lived in Hollywood in 1984-6. We had an apartment on Franklin Place, near Highland (LaHabra Apts. Still standing) and we saw posters on every lamppost for the band, playing at the Troubador. Did we go? NOOOOO! Talk about missed opportunities! I just remember seeing the logos and the flyers. In 1986, we moved to Albuquerque NM. And then... MTV! I yelled for my partner "Get in here! Listen to THIS!... this is what we MISSED!" So yeah, that was my memory. Then... 1986, Aerosmith was touring with Guns N' Roses and were scheduled to play Tingley in Abq. At last! Our CHANCE to see the band we had missed! YEAH!! And THAT was the performance where the group exploded, and never came on stage! Instead, we got Whitesnake, leading in to Aerosmith. Oh well.....
Though I'm not really a G&R fan, I always thought Welcome to The Jungle is perhaps the greatest video I've ever seen. It's one of the most "can't-take-your eye-away-from-the-screen" video in rock.
I was in a high school GarageBand. Two of the guys from the band would going to record stores and pick out cassettes randomly. We would drive around in a 1971 Cutlass supreme . All 5 of us together everywhere we would go practically everyday. And we would listen to that cassette, every single song both sides flip it over and Play it again for months on end. And then when the rest of the world caught on we were kind of like hey that's our band.
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Poll: What is your pick for greatest debut album in rock history? Where every song was AMAZING?
The Cars - The Cars
Boston's first album.
Cracked Rear View Hootie
Script For A Jesters Tear Marillion
for me, in my era, it has to be appetite.. we were around 10 or 11 when that came out and it was lightning, taboo, forbidden fruit. Borrowing my older sisters 80's tapes like Cory Hart, Falco, Brian Adams as my intro to rock and pop etc,,,, This peeled my face off!
I choose The Cars debut also.
I’m a senior citizen. When you shared your memories of you & your father listening to each other’s music and creating a bond forged in Rock, you were telling the story of the bond between my son and me. I’d take him to see classic rock (my son called it “before they die tour) and I’d listen to his music as I fixed snacks for him and his friends & explained the influence that I heard in his music if they asked me . I wasn’t the Cool Mom. However, I was the Smart Mom who could fix snacks, chat, then LEAVE!!! My son & his friends turned out great. They tell me that they share music their kids. Music brought our families together. The Circle Is Unbroken 🤘🎸🎧
Ah! Thanks for sharing!
I'm so glad you have happy memories that will be in your heart for all time. Very poignant post.
Before they die tour 😂
I love this post. I played a game with my two daughters in the car when they were young. I’d play classic rock and they would either have to tell me the band or the song. If the guessed correctly, I’d switch the radio to their music (90’s pop). I’d have to figure out the song or band to be able to switch back to my music. My youngest daughter loved this game. I would talk to her about the classic rock songs. I’d tell her listen to the lead singer’s voice (David Lee Roth’s scream, Steve Perry’s voice and style, Robert Plant’s overall genius, Glenn Fry’s grittiness as opposed to Don Healey’s smoothness and Lou Reed’s poetic verse,etc.) and listen to the sound of the instruments. She learned the riffs of Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, and Jeff Beck. She saw how John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Wanda Jackson influenced early rock and roll musicians. Now, this child of mine loves all music as much as I do. She has learned and shared her insights with me on every genre of music. She will send a song to me so we can talk about the style, the way it makes us feel, etc., and I do the same with her. She listens to everything from Mississippi Blues to Taylor Swift, and can tell you something unique about it all. You can ask her the lyric of any Beatles song, and she can sing it and tell you what album it’s from. She is doing the same thing with my grandson, and he loves it. She makes this music loving mom proud!
@@michellepelton1448Fantastic!!👍😆
I am positive this album saved my life. The Appetite for Destruction album, in cassette form, kept me awake on many late-night drives between US Navy training base NAS Memphis in Millington, TN, and my hometown of Kansas City, a roughly 565 mile drive, one way. I'd leave Millington around 3:00PM (I could leave earlier if I donated blood) and be in Kansas City at midnight, having run through this album multiple times. I'd turn around and do it again, heading back early Sunday afternoon, hungover and dreading my training. Thanks for keeping me awake and on the road, GNR!
Its still a kickass album...and the original cover for Appetite was awesome....1 of best albums I ever bought I'd say if not the best ...glad I got 2 see them twice during the illusion tours
My dad took me to see GNR in Newport Bay, CA in 1991. Skid Row opened up for them on the Use Your Illusion Tour. I was 11 years old then and I am now 43 and looking back I feel super privileged to have seen them. Thanks for the memberberries and history lesson.
I caught that myself, at Hershey park of all places, skid row were really impressive,and the show was perfect, at the top of there power, highlight,probably estranged, but it was all amazing!
Great line up. Skid row is under appreciated
I was 20 yrs old in 1987. I was with my buddy, drinking beer at home, and watching Headbangers Ball. I saw Welcome to the Jungle and I’ll NEVER forget how awe struck I was at this monster band! I knew they were going to be huge and it wasn’t due to the video. That riff, those words and that overall sound was infreakincredible!!!!
I loved Headbangers Ball back in the day!!
I was 15 in 1987, I was visiting my dad in Simi Valley that summer (I’m from Michigan) and I would always put my cassette Walkman on and just walk around the town, went to a record store and Appetite for Destruction just came out that day, I got that cassette and god damn if I didn’t walk around like I wanted to fight just listening to that album, Welcome to the Jungle had me wanting to break shit, flex, fight, act like a fool… what a great fkn album that was/is.
I was going down on my girlfriend and got busted by her mom. We composed ourselves and turned on MTV; this was a Sat.night/Sunday morning. Changed our lives.
But without that video being played at all in MTV, would we know them? It's not the actual video or what's in the video, it's the fact that that we know gnr BECAUSE of a video, it really could've been anything in that video and it probably would still be the same effect
Thanks for the Headbangers’ Ball memories!
My dad was a mail carrier in the mid to late 80s. One day he came home with a box of 4 CD's from a Columbia house wannabe. These packages were sent as bulk mail, meaning he was told to throw them out if undeliverable. We had just got our first home CD player and I listened more than anyone in the house so I was all about new music. The CD's were Depeche Mode - Some great reward, Elton John - Live in Australia, Dire Straits - Brothers in arms and of course GnR - Appetite for destruction. I was new to Depeche Mode and GnR and never heard such dark subject matter at 11, but holy hell did that expand my horizon and made me the metal enthusiast I am today.
I freaking love DM.
I was 14 living in SoCal when this album came out, you couldn't go anywhere without hearing one of it's songs every 5 minutes from cars driving by or radio stations you were listening to or even watching Mtv. It was like that for over 2 years, it was EVERYWHERE. One of the greatest albums of the 80's, and maybe even one of the best albums of all time.
Appetite change life when it hit. 30+ years later, it still rocks hard and the songs are timeless. They struck lightning in a bottle with that release.
I still put in earbuds, go out to the garage to work on shit, grab a beer and crank Appetite all the time! Been listening to it since 1988 and will never stop
I hadn't heard of them until I saw them open for Motley Crue in November of 87, and afterwards I was absolutely obsessed. I managed to get my hands on a dubbed tape that was only the first side on both sides of the tape, and would listen to it over and over again at night with the hair standing up on my arms throughout. It was ECSTATIC. Then I finally got the whole thing, and my mind was blown all over again. Rocket Queen is a seriously underrated tune of theirs. Great video. \m/
You really do an amazing job of telling the stories of musical artists. The love for the music (& for your Dad) resonates and its just a feel good channel.😊 Guns & Roses came to Wellington NZ a few years back. I couldnt go to the concert as I had to work. My day at work was one I just wanted to forget. Feeling down I walked through the light rain back to the hostel where I was staying and headed to the shower to wash my day away. As I got into the shower a sound drifted through the window from the stadium a few kilometres away. Guns and Roses jamming out on a song for a solid 10 mins. I felt all the tension in my life just melt away to the sound. Even though I couldnt go, its an amazing memory. I listened to the rest of the concert from my room, feeling blessed.
I had just moved to Hollywood the year before Appetite was released. A guy moving into our apartment building loaned me a copy on tape. The first time I heard it, I was blown away, and assumed it was a "greatest hits" album from a band I'd never heard of. Still one of the most astonishing debuts ever -
Still one of my top 3 favorite albums of all time hands down. Even after all of the years of bullsh^t that happened with GnR, nobody can deny the impact that this first album made on the music industry and future bands to come. I've always loved the lyrics for their songs and they really were ahead of their time compared to everything else that was out at the time.
Man I still remember sitting on my old electric kit when I was learning how to play Mr Brownstone, I'd spend hours upon hours playing. I had my old I-Pod plugged into the brain on the kit with my headphones, man that was SO much fun. Once the I-Pod broke I used my laptop, but I remember seeing the "times played" section on the playlist eventually a few months later. By this time I had this entire album on lockdown, I could play it from "Welcome to the Jungle" to "Rocket Queen", but the most played song "Mr Brownstone" said it was played 2117 times, lol.
I couldn't read music, so I'd play to ear and also watch videos of other people playing it or whatever song I was trying to learn. I'd hear little symbol hits or toms that I was missing when I'd be driving around, and I couldn't wait to get home so I could update the way I was playing it. Unfortunately it's been years since I've played music, ended up having to get rid of my kit when I loved out of state, smh. It's been years since I've played but I really want to start jamming again, definitely need something new to do in my life on my downtime.
WORD! I can go from ABBA to Enya to Iron Maiden in listening succession without even thinking about it LOL! It's all music to my ears no matter the genre!
Do it, man. Me and a whole buncha other folks here are believing in you so DO IT... no talk. Just DO.
You know Mr. Brownstone inside and out.
14 years old, up all night watching MTV (this were the days), and I got to witness this video being played for the first time. Within hours I scraped up enough money to buy the album. Only problem, there wasn't a record store anywhere near me that had it in stock. Everyday for the next few days I would go up to the record store and check. Finally it arrived. It would be a solid year before it came off my record player. Mind blown!!
I remember some VJ chick talking about a new buzz feed video and then the song came on and it just blew me away!
Did you end up with a restricted label? The original ones came out with a scene depicting a woman having a shirt torn off
A friend of mine dubbed the Appetite tape for me, even though I had never heard of them at the time. Little did I know, it would eventually be HUGE! My dad didn't want me listening to hard rock / heavy metal, but he never forced me to stop. He didn't even like Bon Jovi, because they were too "hard." LOL! I just throw everything together, from disco to pop to Rnb to hard rock to boy bands to girl bands, etc... and I call it "top 40." It's all the same to me. I can go from "Paradise City" by GnR to "My Heart Belongs To Me" by Barbra Streisand without even thinking about it. It's all one genre to me: "TOP 40." 😎
This is totally why our generation has such a diverse appreciation of musical styles. Like you, I love going through a top 40 from a random week and just absorb the variety of massive talent on display. Even music I didn't much care for back then stand out in retrospect, particularly in this era of puerile auto-tuned nonsense.
@@babygerald4645A former neighbor of mine, who is a generation older, one told me she now likes songs that she hated when they were out, because they are from her time. 😅 I now understand!!!
Popular music would be another name for it.
It really helps when all 40 of the songs are good 👍
@@BillGraper Totally! I have to credit Adam here at POR for being so enthusiastic and offering great stories behind bands and songs that I passed over either because my tastes hadn't developed or I had a limited budget to fulfill my musical desires.
I first watched one of his clips about one of my favorite bands back during lockdown and the knowledge he dropped convinced me he'd done plenty of research. After that I was hooked. Now my CD shelf, dormant for so long, has started to expand again in all kinds of directions to the point where I've run out of space. Beach Boys, Black Sabbath, Hall & Oates, Herbie Hancock, Iron Maiden, Kate Bush, Def Leppard, Howard Jones, Tears For Fears... all of these are post-2019 additions thanks to vids featured here.
I was in 8th grade when appetite was released and it changed my life. It introduced me to a whole new genre of music as my dad wasn’t a metal fan. I grew up listening to 50’s doo wop which gave me an apparition for that but I was hooked appetite has been my go to for over 40 years now. To think the most influential album in my life was almost buried in obscurity. I can’t imagine my life without it.
LOL, it always amazes me how diverse musical tastes are. I absolutely detested this band growing up but I won't criticize anyone for what they like. I'm in a band so I can appreciate that some people think we suck but others like us. Taste is personal, not right nor wrong. Happy listening. :)
I remember watching Head Bangers Ball and hearing it for the first time, it may have even been the first time it was played because I remember the VJ announcing them as a new band. I went out and bought the cassette within a few days, I was stationed in Southern California at the time and the record store had some copies. I couldn't believe how good the whole tape was, I listened to it almost non-stop for like 5 months and had almost burned myself out on it before anyone I knew back home had even heard any of the songs. It really was mind boggling that it took so long to take off!
HB was a weekly devotion for me, and later, 120 minutes
What a great story! Thank you.
To answer your last question: I suspect I was one of those people who first saw that single late night play of that song on MTV. I couldn't sleep and I turned the TV on in my room in the middle of the night to the lowest volume which could still allow me to listen without waking my brother on the other side of the room, and I watched MTV in the night. And that video came on...and blew my 10 year-old mind.
There are two moments in my life I remember in more detail than anything. Watching the live footage as 911 played out and the first time MTV played Welcome to the Jungle. I looked at my buddy and told him GNR were going to be huge.
Wow. Thanks for sharing.
Wow.
only 2 moments? your life is empty....sure you aren't just a synth?? PRESTON! WE HAVE ANOTHER!!!!
fukk that, RICK we got another skinjob for ya!
same thing for me with the first welcome vid.. I called several times the next day demanding they play it again... I still think it's the best straight up rock and roll album ever released.
MAN! I was there in 1987 when this song came out, and have been a GNR mega fan since. Yet I still learned new things in this video. Great job Professor!
Thanks Dustin! It's a great story eh?
My best friend's brother was in the military, he heard of them early. When the cd came out I went to the music store with her to get it. I was 15 & into pop & glam metal. Appetite changed that forever. I went rock from then on. To this day I'm a metal head, with a little gangster rap sprinkled in.
This album literally changedy musical direction as a kid. I was into the more pop laden 80's sound of artists like Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston etc etc. Then I heard Guns N Roses and the rest as they say, is history. I still listen to all that great pop music of the 80's, but metal has and will always have my heart and G'N R is a big reason why. This album was everywhere!
I know what you mean. It's one of those transcendent albums!
They put the “hair” in hair metal!
That's me with Quiet Riot's metal health. I'll bet I have a few years on you though
I was the opposite - I hated 80's pop and pop rock and was into thrash metal like Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus, Testament, etc, but when I heard Appetite For Destruction I thought it was the best hard rock album I heard since Back In Black, and it got me back into raw bluesy hard rock again and after that I began to grow out of thrash metal, which was much more one-dimensional.
This is like the 1st time I heard Metallica's "... And Justice For All".
Love the video. I’m from the neighborhood (Washington Heights)in nyc where they ran into the homeless guy . We are very proud of our contribution 😅 to rock music.
I bought Appetite when it first came out. Me and four friends rode around in my car all night listening to it over and over again. We were blown away. Definitely one of the top 25 rock albums ever.
I never wrote band names on my trapper keppers but I did have a pair of JNCOs in high-school that I wrote a bunch of bands names I liked on them. There were names like Ozzy, Cash, GnR, Slioknot and Creedence just to name a few. That ended up being my favorite pair of JNCOs. They stayed in rotation as I wore them one day a week to school even though I had a bunch of jncos. The "music" pair got the most wear. Love your channel man and what you're doing. Keep up the good work.🤘
This album is basically the soundtrack of my life in 1987 and on through the next few years. I'm not 100% sure, but I think every song on this album has been played to some degree on the radio, they are all great. It's hard to find a debut album by anybody that is this good beginning to end. Each song reminds me of particular parts of my life from those days, what an amazing album
Umm Boston, Boston.
Same
Van Helen's debut was another. BUT you're right, Van Halen GnR and Boston are definitely exceptions to the rule.
The album changed my life just as I became a teen.
I remember hearing about this band that was banned, couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, when I did, loved every song on it, had both cassettes and over played them for years 🤟
The part of the video where he's strapped to the chair watching the TVs always reminded me of The Clockwork Orange.
I always think of the movie "SHOCKER"
Best selling debut album in the history of music.. and what a name.. 'Appetite For Destruction' 🔥
It really lived up to it's name don't you think?
@@ProfessorofRock absolutely!
True, Hootie and the Blowfish claim otherwise but their sales figures are bogus.
It’s a name that slaps.
@petercena9497 😳OK, you can go stand in the corner. You're put on Rock God's time out list. You didn't just put Hootie in the same vicinity as Guns N fucking Roses? I can only think of ONE Rock band that's better than GNR. That's Led Zeppelin. Other than that Metallica is 3rd. You can argue over who make its in top 5 after that. Never disrespect GNR man. You'll only anger the Rock God's.
I forged a bond with my Dad with music. My Dad woke me up early every day by blasting Flying High Again by Ozzy. I used to start talking about all the awesome concerts that I had been to and then he would talk about seeing Hendrix and Sabbath,Zeppelin,The Doors and on and on. He had me on the concert thing big time.
It really surprised me to hear about the struggle to get "Welcome to the Jungle" airplay, especially from MTV. The first time I heard of 2, now American entertainment icons, was at the movies. The scene in "The Dead Pool", where a talking corpse (I don't think he could afford much food) was filming a music video.
Jim Carey was the corpse (he may have been playing a corpse), and when you hear that cringe-worthy howl in WTTJ, Carey was rising to sit up in bed, mouth wide-open.
"Welcome to the Jungle" was so memorable to me, that I can replay that scene in my head, and I haven't seen but once, 35 years ago. GNR got a lot of airplay on the deck speakers aboard a small 135' fishing boat on the Bering Sea that was my second home for the 80s & 90s
This is the only album I heard before a band broke big. First year in college in a radio production course and the others were talking about the L.A. music scene and played Welcome to the Jungle in our studio. I was hooked and got the album. A few weeks later, GnR was everywhere.
Welcome the Jungle is one of those song will never forget. As a young Marine in 1989 I've heard that song a bunch of times and I rocked out to it . But 1989 me and my fellow Marines flew in to our first mission off the coast of Liberia, Africa. Our mission, was to secure the US Embassy while the country was in a brutal civil war. The door gunner on helicopter had a boom box (remember those) and was playing that song as we flew in from the ship onto the American Embassy. What a moment. The uncertainty ,the raw emotions, the head games in my brain. That song got me so pumped. I will never forget it! Music and the place we are in our life is essential to ones being.
Every time I hear Welcome to the Jungle it takes me back to that young 20 year old kid's adventure. Keep rocking. Thanks GNR!!!!!
😜
A decade after the album released, I first heard Paradise City in my freshman football locker room and was immediately addicted, fast forward 30 years later, I still hear the song leaving work every so often on one radio station while all the main stations in my city have morning talk shows. Nothing beats dropping the windows and cranking the volume up at 7am in rush hour traffic. Also, I'm extremely jealous of your hover board in the background.
Living the dream aintcha tiger
Kickass recollection of your Dad!
I hope my 2 sons will have that same recollection in their thoughts of my record collection.....that they play LOUD!!
Brings me right back to my USMC days, that album hit just before I deployed aboard the USS New Orleans to the western Pacific. It was playing constantly on just about every boom box on the ship for 6 months. I cant hear anything from that album without thinking about walking through the hangar deck and other spaces on the ship. the only place I could go and NOT hear it, was on the flight deck where boom boxes didn't work, you couldn't plug them in and wouldn't be able to hear them anyway.
I spent some time on the New Orleans also as a Marine. Semper Fi!
Welcome to the jungle, baby--you gonna FLY!!!
I was lucky enough to have gotten to see them in 2017 on the not in this lifetime tour with Axle, Slash and Duff together again, at the Gorge Amp. Theater in the desert 2 hours east of Seattle, WA. There was a raging wild fire behind the Gorge that night and GNR was almost the last band to play that venue. The smoke filled air added to GNR's incendiary 3 1/2 hour long performance. Axle had to run back stage between songs for water and to ice his throat, but the band kept playing, even paying respects to Chris Cornell who had just recently passed away. It was by far the best concert I have ever been to.
This is an Army record for me. One of those huge records that came out during my enlistment that guys in the barracks were blasting from speakers into the common area.
Man, you never fail to entertain. Great video!! Keep em coming
This is the only band that I still remember hearing for the first time.
I was 13 and my friends older brother was playing this insane music in his room. That's all it took for me to love it. 🔫 & 🥀
so cool!
What year was it?
I saw Guns at the Ritz in NYC on Friday and Saturday when MTV broadcast the show live in 88, I recorded both shows on VCR and went to both shows, with the band I was in at the time, Crown of Thorns, place was packed, Great show from them, high energy.
Brilliant retelling of an untold story I wouldn't have believed.A resonating tale when fact is stranger than fiction and revealing an enormous sliding door moment .
I had the cassette with the original artwork. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen on an album cover. There was not a bad song on the entire album. They were all great tracks with no filler.
Absolutely!👍
The crazy Robert Williams banned artwork ? What'd that look like shrunk to cassette size?( I was like 19 then we all collected cassettes,lol)where are those billions of nearly useless cassettes now?
In the late 90’s I had a friend who ran a trivia show at a local bar outside of Atlanta. He loved GnR and the song Night Train. He located a source and ordered a case and shared with the entire bar! It was great and awful and great at the same time! He died in a car crash but what a great memory! Miss you Chad! Thanks Professor!
The first time I heard this song was when I saw the video for it on MTV for the first time. I was immediately addicted. I literally went out right after and bought the album. One of the best decisions I ever made.
It’s a sledgehammer!
I remember seeing the video when it first aired on Headbanger's Ball. Went to Sam Goody to get the cassette the next day. Employees at Goody's never heard of the band. I think I was the first to buy the cassette ever at the store.
I saw them when they played in New Zealand in '89. My ears are still ringing.
The more I listened to that album the more I liked it. The lyrics are so interesting in every song and that phrase Welcome to the Jungle is still being quoted today to describe scenes of chaos and danger. GNR seemed to be a group of really good musicians who truly had an Appetite for Destruction.
"Welcome to the jungle" was a phrase well before gnr. They just used it.
@@Blueberry-sk7kgthank you. So much lost to time. And ignorance.
You had the coolest dad. Never stop sharing those memories with us. I love those stories!
I have had 3 dogs since this album came out. First one was a Rottweiler named Brownstone second a mutt named Duff and my current German Shepherd named Axle. I guess the album and the band had a little effect on me.
Did you not want to name a dog Slash? 🤨
Christmas 1988, I was 12 and got my own cassettes for the first time. Appetite of course, plus Paula Abdul Forever Your Girl and Robert Palmer Heavy Nova. Quite a diverse mix that I remember fondly.
The first time I heard Welcome to the Jungle on MTV, it blew me away. I can remember thinking, "Now this is f*cking rock'n'roll!" There is only one other band in my life that blew my mind and solidified me as fan from the very first listen, Metallica. GnR is the epitome of rock. Dirty, grungy, nasty, and yet soulful. It was a moment in time that I will never forget.
I first heard it on a coach trip home from a Sunday School trip! One of my friends persuaded the church leader to play the cassette over the coach audio system. Suffice to say, it was quickly switched off. But I found my way back to it. A monumental record.
GNR & Metallica were the first groups I chose to listen as an early teen back in the 80s, I had asked my aunt's boyfriend for some cool music, he gave me a copy of appetite for destruction and a mix tape of Metallica, those two cassettes got a lot of playtime.
Of course MTV was vital for getting your music out to the masses. Hearing a song on the radio, you may never learn who sings it or how to find the album, but the videos printed the name of the band and the album title as well as the song title, making it much easier to find. There's songs I've been looking for for years, decades even, and still don't know who performed them.
Love your stories about your dad. My dad couldn't stand this kind of music. My mom on the other hand enjoyed it so much she actually took me to the Guns 'n' Roses / Metallica concert.
"Welcome To The Jungle" is undoubtedly one of the best songs G&R ever recorded.
I was working in Saudi Arabia and during a trip home to Cincinnati, I was listening to the local rock & roll station. I was the 10th caller into the station to win tickets to a GNR & Aerosmith festival. I had not heard of GNR, since R&R radio in Saudi Arabia was non existent. The craziest thing was that I thought I had just won tickets to the show, but when the commercials were over I found out I won the second of two chauffeured RV's to the festival for six people. I immediately went out and bought the GNR cassette tape. When I got into the RV and we started heading for the show, the first tape in the deck was the GNR tape. The show was great and the radio station staff rode with us on the trip home since we were the bigger partiers than the other RV group. GNR and Aerosmith blasting on the stereo the whole trip and at the festival. What a blast of an experience that was!
I still remember the first time I heard “Welcome to the Jungle.” I was fourteen and all of a sudden it was number one on Mtvs dial up MTV. This from that point I was hooked and GnR has had a profound impact on my like. And yes my dad liked them too. The only other band to have this effect on me was when I saw Metallica opening up for Ozzy in 86. When I heard Cliff’s bass solo I knew what I wanted to do. Unfortunately I was too chicken shit to chase my dreams.
I lived in LA (Hollywood) during this era - and worked across the street from the Troubadour - Sunset Blvd after dark was just electric in that time - the music was literally everywhere.
The first time I heard G n' f'n R I was instantly blown away. Appetite for Destruction was everything rock n' roll should be. Raw, loud, explosive, piss your parents and your pastor off unbridled mayhem. It's what cigarettes and tattoos would sound like.
And you can't forget the surreal image of the rock star played by Jim Carrey of all people lip synching to Welcome to the Jungle in the Dirty Harry movie The Dead Pool.
They put the might and the passion into all of it!
My first time for Welcome to the Jungle was on MTV Top 5 at 5. As soon as I could I went out and picked up the CD, listened to every song and was blown away. I knew it was going to be huge. Thanks Adam!
All of us kids LOVED them. They were fantastic. No one could stop them once they went off.
Then they rocketed to stardom! Who could deny Slash! or Axl? The entire OG lineup was truly a phenom.
My sister and brother in law just went to see Guns n Roses last Wednesday! The show was kind of in question because there was some issue with the venue. The show was moved to a second venue and went on anyway 😊 They played with Alice in Chains, and my sister only texted me a clip of AiC. But she said the show was fantastic and they played ALL of their songs! Not only did they jump through hoops to not cancel, but they gave their all for the fans! 👏👏👏
So cool! Where did they play?
@@ProfessorofRock an amphitheater up in Phoenix. I forget which one. They were originally slated to play at a ball park which was needing to be used for playoffs now 😊
Going to see em Monday in Vancouver bc
I want to see them live.
I remember the constant play on MTV. I never knew of the difficulty the band had getting that time! Also loved that memory you told of your dad enjoying the album. My dad and I never shared any musical interests except the national anthem at ballgames, but that was enough for us.
I remember it too... we're getting old ain't we? LoL
Guns n Roses MESMERIZED me the first time I heard them. Welcome to the Jungle felt like the perfect hard song. But, as much as I liked them, I was sure the band would never be accepted by the masses nor their music played on the radio. When MTV aired their show at the Ritz one weekend at midnight, I watched and recorded it. I wore that VHS tape out! As controversial as they were then, today you can't attend any major event (sports, etc.) without hearing them. Thank goodness!
So true. One in a million shot and they came through!
@@ProfessorofRockOne in a Million...I see what you did there 😂
They made it through.
Truth is, after my friend Gordie gifted me his copy (which the song titles and everything had rubbed off of, so he dug in with a ball point pen to etch side I and side II...still have this tape), i was moving far away from him, and my friends, and my voice and guitar teachers, so i was understandably angry, yet exhausted...
So my first listen was several starts between naps during the long drive. My dad even asked how i can fall asleep during such heavy music, and i remember saying that it wore me out...but it also invigorated me during my rest, and inspired me in ways i had never felt before...
When you're 12, that hits...it defines you...
Greatest debut album ever and still in my playlist. The memories associated with this album and it's time period are priceless.
Boston.
Certainly ONE of the greatest debut albums. Personally, I really like Music From Big Pink (The Band), The Slim Shady LP, My Generation (The Who), Licence To Ill (Beastie Boys) Are You Experienced (Hendrix), The Clash, The Ramones, Nevermind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols, Is This It (The Strokes) and Straight Outta Compton (NWA).
Also, no greatest album list is complete without the Beatles so Please Please Me needs a mention.
I remember laying on the living room floor, watching MTV on a weekend sleepover with my cousin when that song played the first time; we had stayed up all night eating popcorn, drinking Coca-Cola, and jolt, cola and playing dungeons and dragons, like kids of our generation we were awake at 4 AM on Sunday morning.
My absolute favorite band of all time. When I finally got my copy as a kid, I had to sneak it in the house and listen to it so my parents couldn't hear. They were like nothing I had ever heard and I listened to it front to back all the time. It's one I can listen to every song and sing all the lyrics, to this day almost 40 years later. It changed my musical direction forever. Most dangerous band in the world!
I had a similar experience. I was 7. I got my copy at a swap-meet (My mother let me go off my own while she shopped). I had to listen to it with headphones on my walkman. My mother would have thrown it away if she heard it. Just like she did my garbage pail kids collection - still mad about that! Anyway, I wore that tape out. Bought it again later on CD, the first CD I ever owned.
@@wavion2 hell yeah!
I remember watching MTV that Saturday night/Sunday morning. Me and some friends where debating whether to party on or crash. After that song we stayed up till Sunday night. KEEP ON BRINGING BSCACK BROTHER. Thanks man
AFD has amazing riffs, amazing vocals by Axl, great solos by Slash, perfect drumming from Steven Adler and punk vibe bass from Duff... but Izzy's rhythm guitar work is something that glued all this things together. Slash's and Izzy's guitar work ( very easy to hear it cause of perfect production by Mike Clink) is maybe the best hard rock guitar duo ever.
Big call, don't forget Angus and Malcolm.
I love that the Cincinnati Bengals latched onto this song as it both makes sense for the team's mascot, AND the high energy of the song is perfect for hyping up a crowd! 🐅 🏈 🎶 👏
I lived in Cincinnati during this time and we loved this song for our beloved Bengals
When you said what song it was, I literally said "Are you fucking KIDDING ME?!" 🤯
I was Gen X, so I didn't watch much MTV until the mid 90s, and by then Welcome to the Jungle was a common song on MTV.
Crazy
I heard it by accident on a pirate radio station that came on late at night and only played Guns & Roses and then it would go off air again. This was in Los Angeles and at the time, NO ONE was playing their music. I was glued to that radio station nightly.
Brother-In-Law's FAVORITE plugged into an old recording for when he raced Moto-Cross...JUST CRANKED AND YANKED AND ROCKED THE TRACK AHEAD OF ALL, ALL THE TIME. One bright Sunday after church, he revved-up the bike and blared "Welcome to the Jungle" one last time as he was did a wheelie and overcompensated when hitting a rock in on the blacktop country road; and fell-off giving his whole back side one huge road rash landing him in ICU with major infection and sepsis for a week. Never raced again and have no idea if he ever listened to 'Welcome to the Jungle' again.
The most '80's image I have ever seen, which I immediately set as the lock screen on my phone, is an alternate version of Appetite's cover. In place of the band member's faces, it has the faces of the Constructicons from Transformers and instead of "Appetite for Destruction" it says "Appetite for Construction". I love it so much and it's pretty much my childhood in one image.
Great background information (that's what makes your channel) - but I guess this album has seminal moments in all of us - "you know where you were when you first heard it..."
It was just before high school when this came out. It remember it being bigger than anything at the time. We really were spoiled for music back then. Not on topic, but I also remember when T2 came out and a local radio station hijacked the airwaves. One day, I turned on the radio and heard You Could Be Mine...when it was over the DJ came on and said, "that was your number one requested song for the 8th time in a row". They continued to play that song and nothing but that song for the rest of the day. Last time I checked it was at something like 82 playbacks. It was an epic day, and sadly something that could never happen now.
From blacklisted to one of the most overplayed songs ever. What a story.
You must be from Cape Girardeau County hahahaaa...
I cannot even imagine.
Cool eh!!!
you seemed to have confused Welcome to the Jungle with Paradise City.
@perfectallycromulent they're both overplayed. Sweet Child may be the most overplayed of them all
I had just turned 8 years old in 1990, and my Mom's family was visiting on summer vacation. This included my Mom's younger brother Shane, who is only 4 or 5 years older than me. While I was sitting upstairs in the living room, Shane came in wearing an "Appetite for Destruction" t-shirt. The image scared the hell out of me, but I was intrigued so I asked him about it. We then all (me and my two brothers) went down to the basement where he was staying and he played the cassette for us. We spent that whole night just listening to GN'R. Before that, the heaviest song I'd ever heard was "Steppin' Stone" by the Monkees or "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf. I was an instant fan. My favorite song on the album was Nightrain, but I also love Patience off of the Lies tape (which Shane also had). That visit lasted about two weeks, and I was also introduced to the likes of Iron Maiden and Motley Crue. I can easily point to that incident as the moment that changed my musical trajectory, as before that I was into MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. Now, about a week after my Mom's family went home, I got into quite a lot of trouble for singing "Used To Love Her" in the car. Mom wasn't happy about those lyrics.
Imagine the ramifications in pop culture had Welcome to the Jungle not been a success on that MTV time slot 😱 I had this album but I kept it in my car because my parents didn't want me to even own it 😂 that's why I'm so jealous that you had an awesome dad that liked GnR.
Thanks! Ya what if?
The late 80s would have been a lot more boring.
The first time I heard this song was in music class. A classmate brought it in and my teacher let it play. Yep, I had the coolest teacher who let it play without stopping the song. Thank you, Mrs. Garrett... Wherever you are.
The Seattle trip was to play at the Rock Theater. A friend of mine lucked out and saw them. They became instant legends in the PNW music scene. You should do a video on that venue, incredible place.
For me there was G-N-F'n-R,, then Metallica,, and then Grunge....i still love all of it...
Axl Rose - perhaps the most over-rated singers in all of Rock. His voice sounds like Katherine Hepburn having a seizure.
I take it you are not a fan?
Once blacklisted. Then cut to October of 2023 and I am watching a high school marching band open their halftime show with "Welcome to the Jungle." Amazing.
Guns n Roses is incredible and the stuff they have been through over the years is something you wouldn't put into a movie as it wouldn't be believable... Love the first album! It is just a classic after classic it is insane. It was top tier rock-'n'-roll and still is. With all the attitude in the world.
The death of glam-rock !!! I dont even know how many appetite for destruction cassette tapes i went through back then. I love my generation, much love to all of you my brothers nationwide...
I love this channel. I can completely skip the first 80% of the video and get everything I need for the last 20%. Awesome. Keep up the good work
I was 15, working at a restaurant as a dish washer when one of my co-workers came in and said," You got to hear this band". He handed me his walkman and pressed play on Welcome to the Jungle...dude....wow
I remember bringing Appetite home when I was 14. I bought it when I was out with a friend. My mother saw the album cover and took it away from me. She saw 5 skulls on a cross and she wasn’t having it. I eventually got it back, but my mother didn’t want me playing it when she was home.
Welcome to the Jungle was the song we walked out to at my graduation in ‘88. A snapshot of the decade.
When GNR blew up they had already been my fave band for months
In fact I was on my second cassette because I had already worn out the first
I was over at my best bud's (RIP)house and his uncle came to visit
He tossed the still wrspped tape to my friend and said
"Hey listen to this and tell me if it's any good, I don't know who they are but the cover looks cool"
We popped it in and even before the opening scream was finished I looked at my friend and said
"This is the greatest band ever!!"
And I've felt the same since
I grew up in a small rural town in NEBRASKA. In 1986 I bought Live Like a Suicide for $4.95 from a really crappy music store (the ONLY crappy music store in town).Exactly how a copy of a 5000 printing record like that landed in my hometown I'll never know. I was 16 years old. I was completely blown away. I spent so much time and effort trying to get my friends and classmates to give it a listen. The same guys who listened to Motley Crue all day everyday would just dismiss the band..."Oh they look like a bunch of f*gs" etc etc. So when Appetite was released I picked it up in Omaha on a family trip to relatives. I stood in a line of exactly me to buy it. I had my walkman..ha remember those? Anyway I didn't get to listen to it until the two hour drive home. I'd been waiting over a year for this to come out and of course I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I still remember halfway through my first listen of Night Train I started yelling "OH MY GOD ROCK AND ROLL ISN'T DEAD" My dad wasn't amused but I was so stoked. Here was a band of my generation that not only didn't suck but were as good as the bands of history that made rock and roll great. Again I beat my head against the wall of hickville inhabitants trying to get people to listen. And then MTV told them it was ok to like them. For weeks all the same people who told me Welcome to the Jungle sucked six months prior were "Hey man you heard this new band Guns and Roses? They are so great" blah blah blah. There is also a small part of me that wonders what their second album would have been if MTV had never aired WTJ.
I remember hearing Welcome To The Jungle on an small FM station broadcasting far away across the river in Osceola Ar. In Memphis you could only pick that station up late at night. The next day I went to a record store in Memphis, Pop Tunes, and searched for the album. Couldn't find it. I thought the radio DJ had introduced the band as "God Sent Roses". Just as I was about to walk out of the store the clerk comes running up to me with a copy of Guns And Roses. Yep that was the one! I went home and recorded it to a cassette. Funny thing though, none of my friends accepted it until many many months later when it started getting air play on the Memphis rock station and MTV. Same thing happened with Nirvana. They thought my Nirvana cassette was ridiculous until about a year or so when it finally broke out in heavy rotation on the local radio. To me the first time I heard GNR and Nirvana was like the first time I heard Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption".
great video - i wish we had YT back then :) I have always said that Appetite For Destruction is one o fthe greatest albums of all time and I stand by that today
The switchboard at MTV literally caught fire that night. The telephone equipment was old and antiquated. Old switchboards literally sparked when phone calls would come in, hence the small fire at MTV. Awesome!
I saw guns and roses in October in Edmonton Alberta with my parents and I was blown away by the band playing all the songs that we have listened to for years and I was like wow
I'd seen a picture of them in a rock magazine, months before I actually heard them. They were the roughest bunch of dudes I'd ever seen and they terrified me. Then, one day our local metal station - 97 Underground - debuted "Welcome to the Jungle". It blew my mind and I was instantly hooked. I had copies of "Appetite" on cassette, CD, vinyl - both the cross cover and the banned cover. They were just so raw, unpolished, and different from most of the music released at that time.
I remember the first time I heard this song. I was a regular in a biker/ construction worker/ real cowboy bar in Colorado. It came on the juke box and I was blown away. I asked the bartender who this band was and she asked why do like it? I said something along the lines of hell yeah this real rock and roll. She was shocked cause I was nortious for only liking 60’s and 70’s rock
My experience with GNR started with seeing a NYC performance in a bar in Portland, ME on their big screen TV. I went to my local record store (as opposed to the mall) to get an album. It was the banned album copy. A friend also came into the store and we left to get coffee. I went back a couple days later and the album had been pulled for the cover. I went to Boston on a road trip and bought a bootleg cassette of their Boston show of that same NYC show. I listened to it and was an immediate fan. I made the trip back to the local music store and bought a copy of the album Fast forward a couple of years and I had moved to Boston. I was working in a store during the day and working as a stage hand for a couple local bands (one broke up two days after signing a contract with a label, another, their drummer moved away and now has 4 Grammy’s I believe on his shelf, but another story for another time). I am working and I get called from 2nd floor to office. I walk down the corridor and right up to Slash. He is obviously unmistakeable but I walk by him. I find out what the problem is. It had been an excuse to let me see Slash. I return to work and Slash is up there. He knew the layout of the store and where we kept the Good (as in unique) T-shirts. I offer help and actually look into his eyes because I didn’t want an autograph, but to find out if he was a real person or just plastic like some musicians I had met. He was real. His assistant shows up with a few items that they buy. That night I tell the producer / guitarist I was working with about my adventure with Slash. He tells me a wild story about two guys named Jeff and Billy that he had known back in Indiana. That concert (GNR at Sullivan Stadium) had been cancelled close to time of show due to a dumb stunt done by a morning crew on a Boston radio station while Slash had been out shopping for jeans and a t-shirt. I learned more about the band members by not going to their show and working for a producer that knew more than he let on to even his own bandmates.
My memories of G'N'R? I lived in Hollywood in 1984-6. We had an apartment on Franklin Place, near Highland (LaHabra Apts. Still standing) and we saw posters on every lamppost for the band, playing at the Troubador.
Did we go? NOOOOO! Talk about missed opportunities! I just remember seeing the logos and the flyers.
In 1986, we moved to Albuquerque NM. And then... MTV! I yelled for my partner "Get in here! Listen to THIS!... this is what we MISSED!"
So yeah, that was my memory. Then... 1986, Aerosmith was touring with Guns N' Roses and were scheduled to play Tingley in Abq. At last! Our CHANCE to see the band we had missed! YEAH!!
And THAT was the performance where the group exploded, and never came on stage! Instead, we got Whitesnake, leading in to Aerosmith. Oh well.....
Though I'm not really a G&R fan, I always thought Welcome to The Jungle is perhaps the greatest video I've ever seen. It's one of the most "can't-take-your eye-away-from-the-screen" video in rock.
I was in a high school GarageBand. Two of the guys from the band would going to record stores and pick out cassettes randomly. We would drive around in a 1971 Cutlass supreme . All 5 of us together everywhere we would go practically everyday. And we would listen to that cassette, every single song both sides flip it over and Play it again for months on end. And then when the rest of the world caught on we were kind of like hey that's our band.