It’s been 14 years of silence…

By Daniel Kandell Zamudio

When I was young, and my heart was an open book, I used to listen to nothing but Golden Oldies on “Big D” 103 FM out of Bloomfield, Connecticut. I was obsessed with Rockabilly, Do-Wop, Motown, Classic Rock n’ Roll, the British Invasion and Psychedelic Rock from the 50’s, 60’s and early (pre-disco) 70’s, while almost completely oblivious to contemporary music—with a few noted exceptions, such as the Grease Soundtrack and The Gloved One, Mr. Michael Jackson. That was, until the summer of 1987, when my friend Edgar (who up until that time, like every other Mexican teenager, only listened to Mexican pop bands, such as Timberiche) introduced me to a new rock group from Los Angeles called Guns N’ Roses.

I remember sitting skeptically in Edgar’s bedroom when he first proudly unsheathed his Appetite for Destruction LP, which depicted vicious scenes of cartoon rape on its now infamous cover art. The first track he played off the b-side was spooky and creepy, and I immediately noticed that this version of “My Michelle” was NOT indeed a cover of the classic Fab Four hit, but a dark, twisted, dangerous, unseemly, perverse and threatening exploitation of the same title. Quite a change from the bubble-gum-pop-boy-and-girl-bands Edgar had been listening to just the previous summer. His Timberiche albums had now been stuffed inside the closet and soon his walls would become plastered with images of late eighties hair metal bands. Metal had arrived to the suburban heights of Mexico City.

Nourished on hits by the Rolling Stones, The Doors and Bob Dylan, and having been indoctrinated into bands such as Queen, AC/DC and Aerosmith by my older brother, fellow classmates and MTV, the bases for this new music were not completely foreign to me. I would often find direct or indirect musical references (a lifelong personal obsession of mine) within this new music, which were often completely lost upon Edgar. As far as Edgar was now concerned, Rock n’ Roll began and ended with GN’R.

While GN’R opened me up to the world of contemporary rock n’ roll and pop music, my chronological musical evolution through the 50s, 60s, and 70s continued (though it was until much later that I could appreciate with only a vague nostalgia much of the early-to-mid 80s, with the exception of a few groups such as Men At Work, Devo, Duran Duran, The Police, Supertramp, Styx and The Clash) and soon I would be raiding my brother’s record and tape cassette collections for his (later) Beatles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin albums, which would round out the foundation and basis of comparison for my musical repertoire.

Only two years after the release of their record-breaking double-albums “Use Your Illusion I & II”, Guns was still “the most dangerous rock band in the world”, even though much of mainstream America was now getting into so-called ‘alternative’ and grunge bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice and Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who had been introduced to the majority of the American public through Perry Farrell’s wandering Lollapalooza music festivals.

Last update : 04-11-2007 12:07

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