Chapter 204
3/2/2009
Ch 204 Guns N Roses it's only (sleazy anti-social) rock and roll
UHF Semifinal Championship video
Our hockey season is over till spring, having lost in overtime last Friday. Prepared a video using L.A.Guns and Guns N' Roses background music dedicated to the history of our Arena.
Guitarist Tracii Guns of L.A. Guns 20 years ago performed in the same arena we play in. He was a founding member of Guns N' Roses but left the group before they actually played gigs. The church people succeeded in stopping the evil metal groups.
The arena originator mentioned below, Jim Salfi, has a son who I teamed with 17 yrs ago and who is now on an opponents team going for the championship next week.
Surprisingly, I did make the highlights (#13 creme) but in the background as a supporting role. I should get an Oscar for something. The guy scoring the winning goal, Lee Carrier, having trained at Lake Placid and played hockey at Hobart College will miss the finals but will be competing in the ironman triathalon competition in Barcelona, Spain.
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L.A. GUNS COCKED AND READY
Times Union, The (Albany, NY) - Thursday, November 9, 1989
Author: Gary Graff Knight-Ridder Newspapers
In the realm of "What if?" questions, heavy metal guitarist Tracii Guns' is a goodie: What if he continued to hang around with W. Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin and stay in their band, Guns 'N Roses?
"I could be a millionaire, I guess," the 23-year-old Guns says with a laugh. He's not kidding; Guns 'N Roses is one of the most popular and most controversial bands in the world, selling millions of albums and irking many with songs laden with obscenities and ethnic and racial slurs, not to mention its altercations with other performers.
But Guns hasn't done too badly for himself since splitting with Rose, Stradlin and their gang. His band, L.A. Guns - which will play at the Clifton Park Arena tonight at 7:30 p.m. - sold about three-quarters of a million copies of its debut album last year - outstanding, considering that it received little radio support.
Now a second effort, "Cocked and Loaded," is trotting toward that mark and is likely to surpass its predecessor thanks to more radio play.
"It's just a lot better of an album," says Doug Podell, program director of Detroit album-rock station WLLZ-FM. "It's produced a little better, the songs are a little better, and the timing just seems right for this kind of album."
Guns says he feels the same way about the timing element. "A long time ago, when I was 15 or 16," he says, "(Motley Crue's) Nikki Sixx told me that if you play your music all the time, the cycle always comes around, and you'll fill the hole one time. Once you do that, you're on top and you can maintain it.
"So we know that eventually this will pop, and when it does it will be our time. People are getting tired of Guns ('N Roses) and Poison being rammed down their throats all the time. The see us as new and refreshing."
Guns cut his teeth along with members of those other bands in the Hollywood rock scene of the mid-'80s, cruising on the Sunset strip and "leeching" from friends. "We were crashing on couches," he says. "Whoever would let us in and give us some space and food, we'd take it."
Those experiences provided the backdrop for L.A. Guns songs like "Sleazy Come, Easy Go," "17 Crash" and "Showdown (Riot on Sunset)."
Guns' eventual split from Guns 'N Roses was purely a matter of style, he says. "I'm very strong-headed and kind of a crybaby, and so is Axl (Rose)," Guns says. "He has a real traditional, rock 'n' roll style he wants to do, and I do, too, but besides that I want to get a little outside, to just really play the (expletive) out of the guitar.
"So we just didn't jibe on things, and it was better for our relationship as friends to get away from each other. I think the conflicts would have been worse if I stayed."
So Guns formed L.A. Guns with bassist Kelly Nickels, a refugee from Faster Pussycat, another popular L.A. group; guitarist Mick Cripps, who was in a British group that was also named Faster Pussycat, and singer Phil Lewis, who had already recorded in a British group named Girl. Current drummer Steve Riley, a veteran of the group WASP, came on board after the first album was recorded.
After two albums and a black leather fashion spread for Rolling Stone magazine, L.A. Guns is clearly one of hard rock's upwardly mobile units. Its record sales and concert attendances may not be on the same level as, say, Guns 'N Roses, but Guns says it's enough for him and his bandmates.
"I'm very happy with the progress we've made," he says. "We really don't shoot for radio that much; we're shooting for a core audience of people who will stay with us for a long time.
"I'll be happy if we can sell a million records consistently, and eventually fill up arenas . I don't want to explode; I've always felt that a car goes fast when it's about to run out of gas, and I don't want that to happen to us." L.A. Guns, with Dangerous Toys and Tora Tora opening, 7:30 tonight, Clifton Park Arena , Clifton Park . Tickets at TicketMaster and Clifton Park Arena box office: $16.50.