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August 20th, 2003
Axl in NY Post + GN'R in book about Sunset Strip + New Tommy interview
In Cindy Adams' August 19th gossip column in the NY Post, she wrote the following:

"Axel Rose, formerly of Guns N' Roses, once earned $8 an hour smoking cigarettes for a UCLA science experiment."

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Yes, she didn't spell Axl's name right.....


GN'R is mentioned in a book called Straight Whisky: A Living History of Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll on the Sunset Strip By Erik Quisling and Austin Williams.

Here's the review from Rolling Stone, September 4, 2003 Issue 930:

ON OPENING NIGHT FOR THE WHISKEY A GO-GO, the famed Los Angeles rock club, Johnny "Secret Agent Man" Rivers was the headliner, and the crowd was filled with stars such as Johnny Carson, Ann-Margret and Cary Grant. In the next four decades, the Whisky would become the palace for a new breed of Hollywood star: the dissolute rock & roller. Straight Whisky tells the story of the club and its owners, providing vivid flashes of some of the people who made their names there - the Doors, the Germs, groupie Pamela Des Barres - plus visitors such as John Belushi and Charles Manson.

The book has sixteen chapters, each divided into two halves. Each first half, written by Austin Williams, picks a particularly juicy evening on the Strip: Jim Morrison hooking up with Janis Joplin (before assaulting her and getting whacked with a bottle of Southern Comfort), or Led Zeppelin jetting in for a night of alcohol and groupies. The best might be an account of two girls orally servicing all of Guns n' Roses and their crew - and taking the opportunity to steal Axl Rose's wallet. Although Williams' accounts are entertaining, it's impossible to tell which parts are based on interviews, which are based on second-hand accounts and which have been fabricated to add colorful detail.

The second half of each chapter, by Erik Quisling, is a history of the Whisky, its owners and their other clubs, and the changing culture of the United States. These sections are scrupulously foot-noted; unfortunately, they're written in the droning tones of a junior-high-school textbook. They also include awkward phrasing such as "all of this inertia came to a screeching halt" and "Woodstock stands along as the grand cresendo of a counterculture movement that had taken years to mature." The behind-the-scenes struggles of a rock club is a fresh tale, one that could be a great book. This is half of that book.

GAVIN EDWARDS


You can read a new interview with Tommy here.

 
 
Source(s): NY Post, Rolling Stone, http://www.pulsetc.com  
  
Thanks to: RoadCrew, GypsySoul, Tyrod 
  
 
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