Ryan's Book Review: Slash

Slash by Slash and Anthony Bozza

Slash (featuring Rocco DeLuca), Saint Is A Sinner Too

Slash (2010)

Synopsis: Another British Mulatto memoir.

Review: I downloaded a sample of this book awhile ago, and for Father's Day, Kelly surprised me with the whole thing, which was awesome.  It is a pretty cool book about Guns N' Roses and Slash's other projects.  It's only worth reading for the Gn'R stuff, though.  The book gets kind of lame at the end when he gets all self important and tries to make it out like Velvet Revolver (who were together when this book was written, around 2007, but are broken up now) is some sort of pinnacle of artistic achievement. After the Anthony Kiedis book and the Jane's Addiction book and now Slash's book, I think I really missed out by not becoming a heroin addict. Bill Hicks was right: drugs are pretty much behind all cool music.  They certainly seem to be behind most of the music of my youth.

Here is some stuff I learned:

• Slash is a big fan of The Cars.
• Axl Rose is more of a humongous douchebag than I ever realized (but I still kind of love him).
• Slash's mom dated David Bowie.
• Duff McKagan is a pretty cool guy.
• Slash is not a Jew (although his name is Saul Hudson, which sounds pretty Jewish to me).
• Steven Adler was fuuuucked up:

"We would be hanging out and sharing a bit of blow, but I couldn't figure out how Steve was always that much more wasted [than me].  He'd just get this twinkle in his eye and say, 'Hey man...butter tray,' and point at the fridge.

'Yeah, okay, Steve.  Sure,' I'd say.  I'd go to the refrigerator, fix myself a drink, and come back with nothing remarkable to report.  I didn't think he actually wanted me to look in the butter tray.  He was that fucked up that I didn't take it seriously.

'Did you see?' he'd ask, grinning wildly.  He'd just keep pointing at the refrigerator and saying 'Butter tray.'

'Yeah, man, I saw it,' I'd say.  'That's a great refrigerator you've got there.  Really nice butter tray, man.'

'Butter tray.'

'So, Steven...what are you trying to say?'"

[SPOILER ALERT]

He was trying to say there were extra drugs in the butter tray.

[END SPOILER ALERT]

I also learned that it is okay for me to like Guns N' Roses, because although they're totally butt rock, they're not the same as all that other hair metal butt rock, which is what I've always told myself.  When I was in high school, most of my friends listened to all that Poison/Great White/Warrant shit and I hated it and never bothered with it (note: not entirely true.  I like a few Motley Crue songs, and love a couple of Cinderella songs.  Some Scorpions stuff is okay, too.  Once in awhile).  But I always kind of liked Guns N' Roses and finally gave in and wasn't ashamed for liking them (fun fact: they are the only band I ever slept out all night to get tickets to see).  Reading this book made me feel better about that, because Slash hated all that stuff too.  I liked this quote about the state of music when he started getting into bands in the mid-80's:

"I had just gotten old enough to appreciate and enjoy all the stuff that had gone on before [hair metal], and just as I had everything started to fucking suck."

And I also liked when he talked about how one of his girlfriends had previously dated the lead singer of Ratt so she'd drag him to their shows:

"I'd even seen Ratt...against my will: as I mentioned, Yvonne had dated their singer, Stephen Pearcy, back when they were still called Mickey Ratt.  When she and I were together, the group headlined [the Long Beach Arena] and she was still so proud of him that we had to go, even though he was a complete moron."

And he talks a lot about how bad he hates Poison.  So although I am somewhat of a music snob, I will remain unashamed of my affection for Guns N' Roses.