Customer Rating:      Summary: Witness the Rise of Rock's Greatest Band! Comment: This is a terrific book for anyone that's a fan of Guns N' Roses and likes to see how a band forms, gels and then shoots for the stars! It's an eyewitness account showing the band going from their baby-step days of hanging out and playing tiny flea boxes, to becoming mega-superstars and all the trappings that go with it. The pictures are AMAZING and capture the raw power and excitement that surrounded GNR the entire time they were on stage. All of the side stories from everyone that knew the band are also interesting, funny and offer a very insightful look inside the making of such a legendary band. I LOVED this book!
Customer Rating:      Summary: A fitting prequel to how G N' R became known as "The World's Most Dangerous Band" Comment: Short and sweet: This book is an essential addition to any Guns N' Roses collection, and serves as an indispensable tool towards cementing in print the history of a band that forever changed the face of rock for many a band to come. Volatility, excess, unpredictability - Qualities sorely lacking in the majority of today's rock-n-roll bands. Guns N' Roses possessed all this and so much more. Kudos all around to Marc, Jason, and Jack - GET THIS BOOK NOW!!
Customer Rating:      Summary: Follow G N' R From Baby Band To Superstardom... Comment: I wasn't expecting a whole lot more than a few pictures and commentary from a bunch of outsiders, instead what i got was an inside look at the origins of the 'world's most notorious band'. Packed with photos of the earliest gigs and candid personal shots, this book is made for the Guns enthusiast or for any 80's hard rock/metal fan.
Marc Canter's friendship with Slash, and his unabashed enthusiam for documenting everything Slash did pays off with a this dynamite first hand account. From Slash's first bands to the early incarnations of G n' R to the making of Appetite For Destruction, it is all captured in pictures and first hand accounts. Slash, Duff McKagan, and Steven Adler add their commentary first hand which adds legitimacy to the book. Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin are quoted via Geffen Records press kits and those sound bytes offer insight into the writing of songs that made Appetite For Destruction on of the highest selling debut albums of all time.
The book also offers insight from friends, former bandmates and girlfriends of the band. This allows the reader to get a real feel for the struggle the band had moving in and out of various bands, meeting each other, playing the Sunset Strip for little to no pay and finally breaking through.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Best Rock N'Roll Book ever Man! Comment: How many Bands can boast that someone had documented every gig with Audio, Photos, memorabilia and more since Day 1? Not Many. This book is the missing piece for any GN'R fan. The Photos really capture the essence of a band on the rise. The info given such as: what the band is saying on stage in between songs, and all the first times they played all the songs off Appetite, really adds depth and insight to one of my favorite bands. I personally would like to thank Marc Canter for releasing this book. I would love to see the photos that didin't make it in. Something else that is really cool is the Family Tree. I love knowing what bands they were in prior to GN'R. Great Insight.
Be sure to check out the enhanced version of the book [...] to hear audio clips from the shows and interviews that were used from old friends, roadies, strippers, Managers, Record Company Execs and the Band members themselves. Thanks Again Marc.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Good, but could have been better Comment: This is a very nice book that could have been better. There are four main issues I have:
1) Too many spelling and grammatical errors.
2) Online interactive content. I would have preferred to have this bundled with the book in CD form. I can't imagine that the website will be functional forever.
3) Also, the map of L.A. in the book that is claimed to be interactive, is in fact, not. I was especially interested to learn more about Hell House and the Gunner's "studio" off Sunset & Gardner. But there is very little on either of these.
4) While Slash, Duff, and Steven have participated at nearly every turn, there is less participation from Izzy and seemingly none from Axl. All of Axl's quotes appear to have originated from other (late 80's) sources. That's unfortunate.
Never the less, this book is a good record of that part of the band's history and makes a nice, if incomplete, visual companion piece to Slash's recent biography.
|