2021.08.18 - Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon - Interview with Marc Canter
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2021.08.18 - Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon - Interview with Marc Canter
by Blackstar Tue Dec 31, 2024 5:36 pm
Marc Canter (GnR Historian and Canter’s Deli owner) and his producing partner Jason Porath have spent years transforming Marc’s memories of this era and his extensive archives form the early days of Guns n’ Roses years into a video podcast series called There First 50 Gigs that not only dives into the history of the band but also that of the Sunset Strip and the music scene in the 80’s. The show will launch in a subscription only format August 19th. I chat with Marc to find out more.
Transcript:
Mitch Lafon: We are speaking with the one and only Mark Cantor. Those of you who are Guns N' Roses fan know him very well from all his work over the years. His new visual podcast, the first 50 gigs, is coming up very shortly actually by the end of this month. As we say in Montreal, bonjour Mark, how are you?
Marc Canter: I'm pretty good, how are you?
ML: Good, so I'm thrilled for this. Now I was just, just, just. And I told you before, I was just texting with Alan Niven. He sends his hello's from Arizona. Before we get started on the First 50 Gigs, how important was Alan in getting you this access? Or was this before the Alan days?
MC: Well, no, this was before the Alan days. I mean, I grew up with Slash since 1976, basically. So Alan came around when Guns N' Roses a couple different people try to manage them and nobody would take on that task. Or the band wasn't happy with whoever was trying to take on that task. But Alan seemed to be the one that was, you know, was wearing the pants and and he was boss and he got in there and kind of you know you know they needed a little rattling around to straighten that out and you know he got them, he was able to get them to the next level.
ML: He was or as I like to say to Alan, he was the one that was crazy enough to deal with them.
MC: Well, yeah. That was actually a chapter in this whole story that was a little while right after they got signed. They wanted to go in and start recording these songs that they had put together, which were all great songs. And you hear them all on Appetite for Destruction, there were no throwaways, but Tom Zutaut who signed them still thought that they needed maybe one more song before they're ready to go in the studio. And it just, that was a dark time. And in those four or five months, anything could have happened. They could have died. They could have got, they could have died on their own. They could have gotten killed. They could have gone to jail. They could have broke up and most likely would have been dropped from the record company or all of the above. Okay. So that's what was on the table. They were getting evicted. They just... everything was just utter chaos and no new music was coming. But all of a sudden somewhere in the middle of May they came up with You're Crazy just because they weren't even trying to write a song, it just naturally happened. But that wasn't enough to have Tom Zutaut say, "Okay, let's go to the studio." But in the middle of August or towards the end of August they came up with Sweet Child O' Mine and Mr. Brownstone in the same week. That was enough to say to Tom, "Okay, you guys are ready for pre-production." And, you know, Alan was instrumental. I remember that's about when Alan came in because right when they were in pre-production, they also coincidentally ended up coming up with, It's So Easy. And that's right when I first met Alan. That's right when he first came. I thought it, I thought it. It's weird how my phone rang after I put it on silent. Anyways-
ML: Modern technology, right?
MC: Yeah. I mean, I flipped the red switch. It's silent, right? Yeah. It's still, it's still ringing. That's when it all that's when Alan stepped in and I remember seeing him for the first time at a rehearsal. And he was trying to, you know, he neatly stepped in and was trying to send people on errands that you go here, you go get this, you get that, so Alan was kind of just got in there and started juggling the balls around.
ML: Yeah. And he did, he did a great job. Just before I get into the whole Guns N' Roses stuff, cause I love Guns. Since you were, you grew up with Slash, there is that story where he was going to go join poison or had auditioned to be Poison, he was going to be the CC DeVille before CC. Do you remember that time at all? And how serious of a flirtation was it?
MC: It wasn't serious at all, but I'll tell you how that all went down. When Poison first moved here from Pennsylvania to get their act going. They had a couple gigs up there, they were doing well, but they knew they needed to come to Los Angeles to really get on-
ML: To make it happen.
MC: Well, now those days are gone. You can come to Los Angeles and find a desert out here. You're not going to make it anymore in Los Angeles. But in those days, that was the time to do it. They came out and the first gig they ever actually saw was at Madame Wong's West and it was Hollywood Rose. That was the first gig they saw. And right away, Matt Smith, who was the guitar player for Poison, recognized that Slash had what it needed. You know, Slash was the guy. Although he wasn't looking to move out of Poison yet, but he knew that Slash had something. And then they started gigging. They had another gig that - I guess Vicki Hamilton might have been managing them - and they requested to have Hollywood Rose play with them. And so Hollywood Rose opened for them at the Troubadour a few months after that. And they were hanging out and I met Matt because I was an Aerosmith fan and so was Slash and so was Matt and Matt's roadie, Paul. And I had this huge Aerosmith collection so I took him to my house and we hung out. And so we were all friends and nothing, just like, "Hello, hey, what's going on?" Then what happened was Matt got his girlfriend pregnant, wanted to go home and start a family back to Pennsylvania and wanted Slash to replace him. But Slash wasn't really on board because he didn't want to shoot silly string in the air and say, "Hey, my name's Slash," because they all have a point where they, you know, it's kind of bubblegum rock at that, you know, all that silly string and everything. But Slash wasn't in a band right then. That was after Hollywood Rose broke up and there was really nothing going on. So I said, you know, "You really should go, obviously you're going to get the job because you're good enough and, you know, the guitar player wants you to replace him." But he just didn't really want to do it. I said, "Well, you know, they probably have a record deal coming up and it's this good stepping stone. You'll get in there, you'll make some noise and you know, somebody will spot you and you'll be somewhere else." So, you know, I actually had to push him to do it. I actually drove him to see them at Radio City in Santa Ana, you know, on a Saturday night gig for that gig. And I was sick as a dog and I still drove them there. That's how badly I wanted him to... My job was to get Slash to the next level, and the next level was to get him noticed. Because I saw how good he was and how talented he was, and I wanted him to step out of Los Angeles and get into something and hit the ground running. But that's what happened. But at the audition, I didn't even go with him to the audition, but he kind of probably, he did it. He learned the songs, he played it, but they can see that he didn't really want to join the band. And then C.C. walked in right after him and he knew that C.C. would get the job because C.C. had that look and obviously really wanted to join that band. So, and was a good fit for what they did Slash really wouldn't have been a good fit. But-
ML: I agree with you by the way, a lot of people say, "Oh, you know, if Neil Peart wasn't [?]", it's like, no, it doesn't work. You know, if Eddie Van Halen was in Poison, no, it doesn't work. C.C.'s right.
MC: You just, you're right about Eddie Van Halen, but Kiss, let me tell you something. I'm gonna tell you a story that Slash doesn't have to remember. And this could have been a turning point regarding Kiss. 1982, Ace Frehley was out of Kiss, but nobody knew it, unless you're inside the industry. And I was a pretty big music fan and I didn't hear anything about it. But anyway, Slash was working two jobs, Business Card Clocks for $6 an hour. And he was working at a Hollywood music store, which was where Genghis Cohen is now on Melrose and Fairfax. Anyways, the owner of that store, his name was Hiro. He's a Japanese guy. He could clearly see that in between no customer Slash would plug a guitar into an amp and doodle around it. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Slash knew what he was doing. So he got word over to his contacts that when he knew that Kiss was looking for a guitar player, and actually recommended Slash for the job. However, Slash was 17 at the time. I was there when Paul Stanley called Slash at Business Card Clocks, and I could hear Slash answering the questions. And it's, "Yeah, I can do it," "Yeah, I could pull that up." The questions were, "Would you be able to record?" "Are you good enough to record?" "Can you tour?" But so everything was going good until he realized Slash was 17. He didn't really wanna take a deeper look and have Slash learn a few songs and come down to the studio, but I bet you, had Slash come to the studio, Slash had an image back then too. He wore moccasins, he just, he had the rock and roll image. As soon as he plugged in that amp and they hear him play, the way he hits the notes, the way he learns the songs, Slash would have been in Kiss, I guarantee it. And I don't know how long he would have stayed in Kiss, cause I don't know if they would have paid him properly. But he certainly would have been in Kiss and he probably would have gotten noticed and maybe pulled out like, you know, Stevie Vaughn was in David Bowie's band for five minutes and then, you know, went off on his own. But Guns N' Roses might not have, you know, they had some, some Izzy and Axl were a good team and Duff certainly was good at what he was doing. But I don't know if they would have had, you know, without Slash, you know, I think you needed all five of those guys at that time.
ML: I agree.
MC: That was definitely a team effort. You know, even if Izzy started a song, Slash would change it and put his two cents into it. Duff would add something and, you know, Steven put the drums on there. Just, you know, even if you take Steven out and you try to listen to Rocket Queen without Steven or some, you know, a handful of those other songs, you know, maybe you hear it, Think About You with a different drummer, you wouldn't know the difference. But for most of those songs, there would be a difference. And so that's just, okay. So I put my book out, Reckless Road in almost 2008. I don't know if you have a copy. Do you have a copy?
ML: I think I do actually, yes.
MC: Okay, so anyways, at the time we were putting that book together, we were talking about also doing a documentary. And you know, at that time, you know, Guns N' Roses was going in a different direction, Slash and Axl weren't talking, Axl kinda wanted to bury that old Guns N' Roses and do something with the new band. Nobody was on the same page and there was no way we were gonna be able to do a proper documentary with the music and sync rights and everything that goes with it. However, we had the people, we had most of the people, we had the roadies and the managers and, I didn't find Alan Niven at the time, I couldn't find his contact. Now, obviously I can contact him, but back then the Internet wasn't as good as it is now and there was a few people like Rob Gardner, we couldn't find, he was the original drummer with Tracii Guns and LA Guns, and he was the first drummer in Guns N' Roses, couldn't find him. After we got the book out, we found him. So, now we could catch up. But during the pandemic, everyone's zooming back and forth. And even on the news, there's no guests in your studio. Everything's, you know, the world's gotten used to the zoom thing. And Jason Porath, who was my co author for Reckless Road, and pretty much made that book happen. He started thinking, you know, during the pandemic, he's working from home or not working and thinking, "Wow, this would be a good time to catch up on that documentary." And now we found a few more people that weren't involved the first time around. And we have some, you know, the videos that we recorded, the interviews that we did with Robert John, who was a photographer, you know, Slash stuff, Steven, who did we get? We got Tom Zutaut, we got Mike Klink, we got Vicki Hamilton, we got a bunch of people on video, some people we got on audio because we didn't have the budget to fly them here from where they were. Like, you know, my Michelle Young and, you know, different roadies or people that were in the previous bands that now moved away. So we have that stuff so we could intertwine it. So it started out, we did a few experimentals with it. We did episode one like four different times and they're completely different. They just changed every time. So now when people say, I saw episode one, it was really good. I don't even know which one is episode one anymore. That's how many episode ones I've seen, but they're all good because you're getting information that most people don't know. And even if some of it's in the book, it doesn't mean everyone has seen the book and I think it's more powerful when you see the person saying it themselves, rather than just reading it in a book. And there's visuals, you know, with a podcast, you have audio. You know, I recorded all those songs. Every show that Guns ever played in Los Angeles, maybe with the exception of one that I missed, I recorded them. So the first... OK, there's 12 songs and Appetite for Destruction. I was there for 10 of them the first time they were played.
ML: Let me just ask you about that. You recorded all the shows just on a cassette Walkman thing, and they sound horrible or did you get soundboard and you have real?
MC: Walkman and they don't sound horrible. Some of them are good because I was smart. I put a little microphone. I had that in my pocket because I've also taken pictures, and I brought the microphone out and put it on my watch. I was careful not to make too much noises with that. A couple shows were a little muddy, but a lot of the shows are actually very clean. There was some board tapes that I did, I was smart enough to get once I figured out how to talk to deal with the sound man and, you know-
ML: Slip him 20 bucks.
MC: Yeah, the problem with those board tapes are the vocals are way too loud and everything, because the vocals were, Axl's going through the board mostly and the band was so loud that they didn't need the board. So you're getting an echo. You're getting an echo through the amps into the microphone and Axl's. So it's, yes, it's true. I used to be so OCD that I would take the board tape and take the one I made and get, I try to sync them together, one in the right channel, one in the left channel. And I had one of those tape players that you could slow and speed down the speed. And when you start to hear them echo, cause you know, they're all little different speeds. If you try to play them at the same time, one would start to go a little faster than the other, and you'd start to hear like an echo. And then when that echo came, I'd try to speed it up or slow it down. And, you know, I did all that and just to have some fun with it. But in the end, honestly, the raw material sounds great. You know, when they first time they played Welcome to the Jungle was July 20th at the Troubadour. That was the first time I even heard it. I didn't even hear it at a rehearsal. It was brand new and they they just knocked it out. I was like, "Wow!" you know, I knew they were a great band. I knew they were a good fit. Some of those musicians went, you know, intertwined in Hollywood Rose back and forth. And didn't work that time because Steven still had double bass drums and Izzy exited as soon as Slash entered. And you just didn't have, yeah, you had Axl, Slash, and Steven, but it wasn't, you know, it lasted three months. You could barely hear Axl. Songwriting was okay. It just needed something else to it, I guess, a little bit of magic from Izzy and Duff. And one of Steven's bass drums to disappear. And when Slash joined Guns N' Roses, he was in Black Sheep, actually. Another band I made him join. It was a heavy metal band. I'm sure you know who they were. Anyways, you probably knew Willie Bass.
ML: Yes, he passed away last year, I believe, unfortunately.
MC: Yeah, I think it was actually a couple years ago.
ML: Yeah, Willie was a great guy, him and I got along great.
MC: Slash was in the band just for one song. He had just joined, he learned the songs. It wasn't really what he does, but he pulled it up well. And the first gig they did was Slash was at the Country Club May 31st, '85. And that's exactly when Tracii and Rob Gardner walked from GN'R. And they had a gig booked at the Troubadour the next week. And they had a gig, some gigs up north, in Seattle and, you know, Oregon. And, you know, they came and they said, "All right, so we know Slash already, you've worked in Hollywood Rose. Okay, it's all good. We need you, you know? And we need Steven too," because Rob left. And so Steven and Slash joined and they had like a couple rehearsals and they played that show at the Troubadour. But what was all different for me at that gig was they were so photogenic. I shot four rolls of film in just 35 minutes. And I didn't have an automatic winder. I had to take a picture and go click, you know, the old school. But that's how good no matter where I pointed the camera. It's a shot. I've shot Iron Maiden. I've shot you know Judas Priest. I shot hundreds of bands.
ML: Yeah, Prince you shot I've seen I saw your stuff. Your stuff's great, by the way.
MC: Thank you. I don't know about hundreds of bands. But I shot a lot of bands. And a lot of times you pull the camera and there's nothing. You just don't pull the trigger. You look at it and you don't like what you see. You just you wait for another moment with that gig, it didn't matter who I pointed the camera at, it was, there was a photo to be taken. And, you know, I noticed that the music slowed down. There was only one bass drum and you could hear Axl clean. And, you know, I heard Don't Cry that night, which I'd never heard that Izzy and Axl put that together before Slash joined. I already knew, you know, some of the other songs. Think About You, actually, I heard that night for the first time, but I knew like Anything Goes and, you know, Reckless and Shadow of Your Love. Anyway, so that gig opened my eyes like, "Hey, I think they got it this time." And they did debut, no, no, they didn't debut that. That was the next gig that I saw and they debuted Mama Kim, but it wasn't really their song anyways. But when they put together Jungle, that was like, "Wow!" Yes, Don't Cry was pretty powerful. And that showed you that they have the potential of at least being on the radio or whatever, you could see that that was a hit. But when Welcome to the Jungle came out. I recorded that night after the show. I listened to it in my car. I'm like, "Wow." Because you don't really know what you heard the first time you hear it, and it's live. But hearing it in the car for the next couple of days, like, "Oh, wow." And it sounds just like the album. I mean, this guitar solo is the same, everything. Two months later, they came up with Rocket Queen. And that sounds just like the record. And Axl gets out there and says, "This is the new one. It ain't much, but it's the best I could do. This song's for Barbie. This song's called Rocket Queen." And Barbie was a good friend of his. And actually, the tattoo on his arm is supposedly half supposed to be Barbie and half Monique or some girl that Axl dated.
ML: Let me just ask you one thing. Were you just following Guns N' Roses that time? Or were you on the Sunset Strip going to all the different shows and all the different bands?
MC: No, I was following Slash.
ML: OK, OK.
MC: Slash, you know, we were good friends in the fifth grade. And, you know, I noticed right away his artwork. He had dinosaurs and snakes and a jungle. And, you know, he was writing, he was doing this without tracing it out of a book. It was just coming out of his head, you know. So, you know, he had some talent. It was, and we were hanging out and whatever. And we, you know, we lived a block away from each other. We were carpooling to school. At some point we started writing BMX. And we weren't listening to music yet. And he was faster and better than anyone else. He'd fly off the jump and people would be taking camp. The flashes would be going off when he flew over the jump. Not anyone else, but him, because he was doing X games type of things, full tabletops and all these weird little things. And he just had something special about him. And I was documenting that. I was taking pictures of him jumping over Park La Brea Tarp Pits, flying off that ski jump that used to be there. But I lay under them and it looked like he's flying in the air and bunny hopping trash cans. Just, we caused trouble as kids. Then we lost touch for about a year because he got kicked out of John Burroughs Junior High School, probably for absenteeism or tardiness or smoking cigarettes or whatever, but he went to Bancroft. So we lost touch for about a year and just by default because we weren't in the same school. No one had cell phones yet. But at the summer school that like 10th grade we bumped into each other. His mom put him in Beverly Hills High Summer School for that summer and we just literally bumped into each other. I'm wearing an Aerosmith shirt, he's wearing a Zeppelin shirt. So like I said we weren't listening to music when we were hanging out so naturally we both got into music and we both liked the same bands. And he said, "Oh yeah, I've been playing guitar for about six months. I'm in this band called Tidus Sloan." Right then and there I knew that this is gonna be good. And I went with him that day. My mom came to pick me up and now I'm going with him. I went with him to a garage. Adam Greenberg was the drummer. And I knew Adam Greenberg from John Burroughs. And right away, it was just what I thought. He had this BC Rich Mockingbird plugged it into a Sun Amp. They were playing Heaven and Hell. It was so heavy. I mean, Tony Iommi would have been like, "Wow!" But then, you know, and that impressed me that he can get such a thick, rich sound and he could get controlled feedback and all that stuff. But when they were playing some originals and he went into the guitar solo or even some blues jams and he was improvising, right away I was getting goosebumps saying, "Okay." So he's only been playing six months. So he's not technically like, you know, can do all this stuff, what he is doing, it's powerful. And so I instantly started helping him get to the next level. Whatever he needed, a new pack of guitar strings, go to Santa Ana to look at an amp or buy a guitar from the Recycler, just whatever. Just help him get the equipment that he needs, whether it's an effect pedal, a ride somewhere, just whatever. I was fully promoting him and telling it all my friends, you got to come, they got to party on this date and just trying to get a crowd there. And when he finally eventually, you know, ended up in the Appetite For Destruction lineup, it wasn't just him. I knew Axl had it. I didn't know about the rest of them. And then when I saw what they were doing, putting these songs together, Paradise City, My Michelle, you know-
ML: Great songs. Let me ask you just real quick, because you touched real quick on Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns and stuff. Tracii Guns is a fantastic guitar player. We know that. He can play circles around people. Why didn't it work with Axl? Where did it just not connect? Was it personality? Was it just, they didn't have the songs because he's a great player.
MC: It's funny that you say personality because, okay, so Slash and Tracii were in rival bands and Tracii had been playing for years before Slash had been started. So, Tracii was playing Led Zeppelin covers and he was doing it, you know, and he had this nice equipment and a nice guitar. And so I remember going to a party with Slash and Pyrrhus was Tracii's Guns first band. They were playing that party and I was like, "Wow, look at this guy. This guy is pulling it off," and "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know him." But so anyways, when Hollywood Rose fell apart, Axl immediately joined up with Tracii and that was like, that was the Slash's rival. And, you know, he only lasted two gigs with that. So it fell apart after two gigs. And those gigs, by the way, were a week apart. So Axl might've only been in the band like two weeks, maybe three weeks, or at least that I know of. And so Hollywood Rose kind of, you know, fell apart when that fell apart. So what happened was Tracii and Axl kind of hooked up again towards the end of that year, towards the end of 84. And Tracii didn't want to join Rose or Hollywood Rose because then Axl would have been the man in charge and Axl didn't want to join Tracii's band, you know, LA Guns because then Tracii's the god. And we already went through that and it's not going to work. So it was two personalities that were banging heads. But they decided, "How about this? How about we start a third band and it will be a side project? It won't be any one of our bands. It'll just be both of our bands. We'll both kind of, you know, be equals in it." So that's how Guns N' Roses started. It was a side project. And, you know, Izzy was back in the picture and, you know, they had Rob already was there and they picked up a bass player, Ole, that was, you know, what was in LA Guns. And he didn't, he only, he didn't even make it to one gig. He quit the band pretty quickly. And, you know, then they ended up with that. But back to your question, we don't have a real reason and Tracii keeps ghosting us but... But the funny thing is he ghosted me for Reckless Road. I mean I had a cell number, "Hi, this is Tracii, leave a message." I left a message and he never called me back. This was in 2007. Then I bumped into him at a memorial service for a mutual friend and he apologized. "Hey, I didn't realize you were really putting a nice," you know, "this really great project together. It's the history it tells him what it is. It's not anyone's opinion. It's just a bunch of facts right there for you. It's a scrapbook of facts. And so if you ever need me again, let me know, you know, and I'll be there." Well, now we're doing this podcast. We never got Tracii's input and he didn't reply, you know, he didn't come back on it. But I think he might not like the ending of where that got him. Because if you ask Axl, you're going to get one opinion. So you can't really, you can't just because Axl says this or as he says that, it doesn't mean that's what happened. Tracii has a side of the story too. So you're never gonna get the story out until you hear it from all of them and then you could make your own decisions. But from what I got is, they really didn't wanna go up north to that tour. It didn't sound very stable to them. The car wasn't that good. And they were right, the car did break down and they had a hitchhike. And it just, also there might have been, I'm not gonna say it in stone, but there might have been some argument between Axl and Tracii at the last gig before that at Dancing Waters, regarding how a song, the arrangement of a song that they were playing or something they wanted, one of them wanted to change and the other one disagreed. That's what I've gotten into it. But I'm sure Tracii doesn't have too much remorse because had he not left the band, yeah, they would have been a good band, but they wouldn't have had that Appetite For Destruction lineup, you wouldn't have Welcome to the Jungle, which was Slash's input. You wouldn't have had Paradise City. You wouldn't have had Rocket Queen. You wouldn't... There's so many songs you wouldn't have, it might not have been enough to get that band off the ground. Even though it would have been good, you know, they did have Don't Cry. They certainly certainly could put songs together. I remember seeing Izzy and Tracii around that time coming into Canter's. Because Tracii used to live a block away from Canter's on Orange Grove, I believe. And they would sit at the counter for hours writing lyrics and working on melodies. So sure, they would have produced songs-
ML: It wouldn't have been the same magic. I mean, a lot of people always say, "You need the reunion, you need this." It really is about the magic. Those five guys created the magic. And I can't see Axl Rose singing Sex Action quite frankly.
MC: But you know, here's the other thing about it. That magic also came from because how they were living. They were writing about what was going on. Hiding from the cops, you know, four of them are living in a shoe box that's not even, it's a studio for rehearsing, not for living. You know, there's no bathroom there. They have to go the alley to pee or go to Denny's to use the bathroom or something that was right behind Denny's. But you got that, Duff was living with a girlfriend, but the rest of them, if they struck out at night with whoever they were trying to sleep, spend the night at someone's house, they slept in the studio there. So when one of them picks up guitar and starts to work on something, the other guys are there to hear it. So the music is a true collaboration. Later, I'm not knocking at what happened later. I'm just saying later, Use Your Illusion, things change because now they are all living separately. They all have little mini studios in their house. And so Izzy will record a song in full before anyone even heard it and got to rip it apart or change something or change a riff, and then submit it to the band and then they work on it. So things got put together in a different fashion and what are they gonna write about now? The record company ripping them off? Or their lawyer screwing them or something. But so things are going to change. I'm not saying they lost their talent, not at all. It's a different set of circumstances.
ML: Let me ask you this because you're bringing up an interesting point and I want to bring it quickly to 2021. They reunited in 2016, they've done five years. The other day in Boston, they debuted this song, Absurd, which was Silkworms from 2001. Why do you think it's taken them so long to put out a new album? Is it just they can't get it legally? They're just in their own little planets like you're saying and they have their own studios and it's a different reality because five years, 10 songs off doesn't sound like hard work.
MC: I'm not an expert in what's going on. I'm not an expert. I know things that happen in '85, '86 and before that, I know things that happened after that. It pretty much falls apart for me around 2007 ish, but, so, you know, for me, there's a lot of emotions with what they do. And I don't really want to get into it, but you know, like, I can't comment on that because it's not, it's not a fair comment because it's just an opinion and my opinion doesn't mean it's right. I like to state to the facts that I know. And I kind of stay out of that. That's run by a machine basically. And so I can't get involved in why this, why that. It could be a number of factors in there. I can say I was really proud when I found out Axl was up there singing with AC/DC, that he pulled that off, you know-
ML: You know, that was great, by the way. I'm sorry, but I know and I've got my AC/DC font in the back and people have been bitching and moaning about Axl and AC/DC. I want a live album and DVD from that tour because he was fucking fantastic. And I'm saying he was fucking fantastic.
MC: We heard the Bon Scott stuff, he already proved that. And we knew that that's when I first time that I heard Axl sing. I said, it's Bon Scott got married that Janis Joplin. You know, it was that he well, that was one of his ranges. Axl, what makes it special is he has like five, six ranges. But you know, the It's So Easy voice is one of my favorites, too.
ML: Whole Lotta Rosie when they used to cover that.
MC: Yeah, A Whole Lotta Rosie. So anyways, you knew he could do that. But I was actually afraid he was going to hurt himself doing the Brian Johnson stuff. And he pulled it off. He certainly pulled it off. I watched some of that on YouTube and I was cringing. Even though he was doing, I wasn't cringing because it was bad. I was cringing because it was good. And, but I was afraid he was going to hurt himself because Axl is the type of person, the Axl I know, is a type of person that's going to give it 150%. You know, it's like victory or death. So he's going to hit that note, even if he shouldn't hit that note. You hear what I'm saying? So I was really proud that, that he took that, you know, that.... If we go back to 1984, when his goal was.... He was working at Tower Video and believe it or not, he set a bar. You know what his bar was? That no matter where I sleep, I don't care as long as I can get a gym membership so I can have a place to shower. Because if you'd sleep on someone's couch or you'd sleep, you'd find a girl hook up with a girl sleep there. Sometimes he'd strike out and he'd sleep at the stairwell of that Tower Video right behind, there's like a little corner in there. And so he said, "I don't care where I sleep as long as they have a place to shower." But I can go back to 1984 and say, guess what? Just as he's telling me that one day you are going to fill in for Brian Johnson, he would think I'm crazy. And on top of that, your own band is going to be bigger than AC/DC. And so, or as big or whatever, one of those bands that in 300 years from now, they're gonna still be relevant. Kids are gonna turn 14 and buy that Appetite For Destruction, how they buy it, I don't know. We don't know what the technology will be. But I guarantee you when it went during a baseball game and the closing picture comes out, someone's going to be playing Welcome to the Jungle.
ML: Yeah, listen, they're there. They are the new Beethoven in a sense that they are like a Mozart and a Beethoven where 350 years later, we're still listening to Symphony number five and Welcome to the Jungle. It's just it is. That's what's gonna happen.
MC: It's a tattoo. Right up there with the Stones and the Beatles and Zeppelin and Aerosmith. There's a good amount of bands, there's probably 20 bands that will stand the test of time when I say that, even in a thousand years from now. But yeah, so that's basically, my job is to get this information out that people don't know. I know this because I'm an Aerosmith fan and I was a huge Aerosmith collector. And I would kill to get some of this information, how they got to that first lineup of what, you know, what they, when they debuted this song or that song and, you know, stories that got lost on the cutting room floor, just, you know, and I don't know everything. I know a lot that I saw, but some of these other people, we got Chris Weber. And even though he participated in the book, we got him a lot better, a lot cleaner, because it was a different project. We just needed him comment a couple things for the book, which he did. And there's a few quotes, but on the podcast, you almost get a tear in your eye because it's so powerful. And same with Rob Gardner, although we didn't have him the first time, very powerful. And Adam Greenberg talks about, the drummer from Tidus Sloan, Slash's first band, he tells you he lays it down exactly how that came together, how it was working with Slash, recognizing that Slash was on a different level and they were way behind and they knew that he was gonna fly away at some point. But just getting that, it just makes it such an emotional documentary that it's just moving. It really is moving.
ML: It really is. And let me just quickly remind the folks that the video podcast is called The First 50 Gigs, Guns N' Roses, and the Making of Appetite for Destruction Season One, which is good news because that means there's probably going to be a Season Two. It launches August 19th, 19th, I should say, through Patreon, which is going to be very cool.
MC: There's also an exhibit that they're doing at the Roosevelt Hotel, which was cool because we used to go there for the Capitol record Swat Me[?] back in the eighties. It was at that hotel. And actually another point is Duff married his first wife Mandy at that hotel. So there's another thing there. But anyways, that's gonna be like a gallery of some images from the book or from what I captured. And also Jack Lue, who is, I don't know if he's been on your show, but he's very relevant in today's world. He photographs every single band he can. And he works with that, what's that? Days magazine? High... I can't think of the name of it. Like a heavy metal magazine in Los Angeles, High Wire Days or something.
ML: Something like that. I'm gonna look at it. The first 50 gigs, the exhibit is August 18th at 6pm at Roosevelt Hotel. And... Oh, I don't have the, I don't have the, well, there's a ticketing link, but anyway, you can just search that up. But Marc, this has been great, by the way. I never knew about Slash and Kiss. I knew about Richie Sambora in '82, I knew about Doug Aldrich in '82, all going for that Kiss gig. Did not know about Slash.
MC: Because he didn't make it. He didn't make it to the interview. He didn't get past the phone interview. And I'll tell you something funny. You know, Slash had a lot of alcohol in his brain and other things. And so, yeah, he remembers, like if you read his book, he remembers a lot of things, but he has them mixed up a little bit sometimes. And the stories are half right and half... It's two stories into one or the dates are wrong. But it's, you know, someone once said it doesn't matter how they remember it, so you got to go with it. But we were once doing an interview with Neils Oslauer[?], you know, the photographer, he was doing some kind of YouTube channel, but for some reason, this one never made it on because the project ended right after we recorded it. But I told this story and Slash looked at me really confused. And he was like, "I don't remember that at all." I said, "At all?" That was kind of a big deal that you had a chance to maybe be in Kiss, but it was such a brief moment in time. It's like, it happened so quick that, you know, "Okay, Paul Stanley is gonna call you today at two o'clock." Okay, two o'clock came that day and Paul Stanley called and then we never heard from him again. So it wasn't like something that was building up and he had to rehearse for it. It just like happened. But it is a story and it is out there.
ML: So I'm just imagining what creatures of the night with Eric Carr and Slash would have sounded like. I mean, that is damn, that would have been good. Not that we don't like Vinny, but slash.
MC: I know, I know, but certain things aren't meant to be, but another thing about Guns N' Roses is, you know, I knew they had the vocal range, I knew they had the songwriting, I knew they had the guitar playing and the sound, and they knew they had the image because a lot of bands don't have that. I remember as a kid going to Westwood and coming home with like a Zeppelin poster or an Aerosmith poster or something, and Michael Schenker with a Flying V poster, and you hang these all over your wall, but what band is there today that you'd want to get their poster and put it on your wall?
ML: BTS. [laughs]
MC: I'm not saying there's any good bands anymore. For example, Muse is a great band. I went to see him live and I fell asleep. There was no stage presence, there was no image. The music's good, but there's, you know, Guns N' Roses was the last of those bands that you could identify every member in the band and know exactly who's who. And there was a stage presence, there's something there. And yes, I saw the stage presence at that first show. Slash always had the stage presence, but for the rest of them. But what really kind of clicked, there was two shows after that that really set my mind, you know, to lift the bar even higher. They played the Street Scene, September 28th of '85, Los Angeles Downtown Street Scene, and Slash had just got a Les Paul three days before that. And so that was the finishing touch to, you know, to Slash's and the Les Paul image. But they got up there at 8.30 at night and they were supposed to play at 5.30 because the whole day was running late. Social Distortion was playing after them and people knew who they were. Nobody really knew who GN'R was. Before that they played in front of maybe 200 people. And so maybe there was 20, 30 people there that knew who GN'R was. Those people were not happy to see GN'R take that stage when the band they're waiting for is already three hours late. And they're throwing beer, they're spitting at the band, they're shaking the stage, they're throwing pieces of hamburgers and Guns N' Roses is just there, you know, just pushing harder and by the second song the crowd was eating out of their hands and they maintained that stage and they owned it, you know, and I'm taking pictures from behind the drum riser looking out to the crowd, you know, "Wow!" This look like Woodstock as far as I'm concerned, because the people just keep going back. You know, it might've only been 2000, but it looked like a lot. And, you know, it was crazy. And I shot off like four rolls of film in that 20 minute set. That's how good it was. It just was just great. So much energy. That's what made me realize they are not only a great band, but they are a stadium band. Even though that's not a stadium, I saw that they can grab that whole crowd, not just the crowd that came to see them, but they could grab the people that had no idea who they were and pull them in. I saw it again when they opened for Ted Nugent in Black and Blue at Santa Monica Civic after they got signed, still nobody in that crowd... I shouldn't say nobody. There's 4,000 people there. Probably 300 of them knew who GN'R was 400 of them. And you know what? They blew Ted off the stage and, and the whole crowd was cheering for them after every song. It sounded like a live concert where you hear, with the band stops and you hear all the audience cheering. It wasn't just a couple of claps. I mean, so they also, and that was a big stage. That was the first time they were on a big stage and they used every inch of that stage. They made it work.
ML: It's amazing that you just know because, and I'll tell a couple of things. When I first saw Guns N' Roses open for Aerosmith in Saratoga Springs, I've seen a bunch of openers before and you just went, "Eh," but you saw Guns and you just went, "Yep, that band's gonna be something." And I felt the same way. Listen, a couple of years after I saw the Black Crows open, I guess for Aerosmith again, and you just went, "Yep," you know.
MC: I know when Guns first got out of Los Angeles, they went on tour at The Cult. Obviously The Cult was touring arenas and nobody really knew what Guns N' Roses were. After Tom Zutaut told me that every city that they played in, the next day, there would be a spike in sales. People go out and buy Appetite for Destruction from those record stores in that city. And same happened with Motley Crue and Alice Cooper. And then, you know, then, you know, Welcome to the Jungle wouldn't get played on the radio because the radio station, MTV, I'm sorry, not the radio. Well, yeah, radio too, but other than KNAC or those heavy metal underground stations. MTV refused to play Welcome to the Jungle video and they didn't want to lose sponsors because they thought Guns N' Roses was associated with, you know, raping girls and bad, you know because of the album cover and you know, what I'm just drugs and whatever-
ML: I will say the that original album cover was in bad taste. I mean respectfully.
MC: It was a joke. Axl used to go to Tower Video and Tower Records and you know, they had these kind of weird postcards that there and he'd come home with like two or three of those postcards and he just loved those little fun little, you know, little things. And he was joking. He said, "Here's our album cover." And he was joking. And the other guys said, "Totally." And, you know, I don't know how they got that approved, but I remember I was sitting in Tom Zutaut's office after the record came out, like, I don't know, a few months later, working on something with him. And he showed me the new cover. And he said, "Yeah, that got banned. This is going to be the new cover." I went to Aaron's records on Melrose and bought all of them. There was like 14 of them there because it was, you know, Guns N' Roses was known in Los Angeles. So they, Aaron records stocked a bunch of them. I just grabbed them all, brought them to the front desk and they were 5.99 and bought them all because I knew that it's a collector's item one day. And still people come to me for them every now and then. But there's just, there's a lot. I mean, when Tom Zutaut got MTV to play Welcome to the Jungle, they only agreed to play it once at like, you know, three in the morning. Our time, I'm sorry. Yeah, three in the morning, our time and maybe two in the morning, our time, five o'clock in the morning New York time. And their switchboard blew up. "Play that again," "play that again." So they had no choice but to throw it in rotation. And by that point, they probably had sold 200,000 records. And it's been a year, you know, almost a year. And that Jungle hit the airwaves and it wasn't soon after that, maybe it might have taken Sweet Child to come out also, but they were selling 200,000 records a week after that. And so then I was like, "All right, they're out there. They're out there. That's it."
ML: And you could tell. It's amazing how you can tell. On that, I've got to get going because it's actually my daughter's 18th birthday. We have a dinner starting in less than half an hour. But Marc, a great pleasure. Let's do a part two at some point. I'll get Alan on and we'll trade stories. The First 50 gigs Guns N' Roses and the Making of Appetite for Destruction, a visual podcast, starts on Patreon on August 19th. And on that, as we say in Montreal, merci. That was fascinating. Love it.
Transcript:
Mitch Lafon: We are speaking with the one and only Mark Cantor. Those of you who are Guns N' Roses fan know him very well from all his work over the years. His new visual podcast, the first 50 gigs, is coming up very shortly actually by the end of this month. As we say in Montreal, bonjour Mark, how are you?
Marc Canter: I'm pretty good, how are you?
ML: Good, so I'm thrilled for this. Now I was just, just, just. And I told you before, I was just texting with Alan Niven. He sends his hello's from Arizona. Before we get started on the First 50 Gigs, how important was Alan in getting you this access? Or was this before the Alan days?
MC: Well, no, this was before the Alan days. I mean, I grew up with Slash since 1976, basically. So Alan came around when Guns N' Roses a couple different people try to manage them and nobody would take on that task. Or the band wasn't happy with whoever was trying to take on that task. But Alan seemed to be the one that was, you know, was wearing the pants and and he was boss and he got in there and kind of you know you know they needed a little rattling around to straighten that out and you know he got them, he was able to get them to the next level.
ML: He was or as I like to say to Alan, he was the one that was crazy enough to deal with them.
MC: Well, yeah. That was actually a chapter in this whole story that was a little while right after they got signed. They wanted to go in and start recording these songs that they had put together, which were all great songs. And you hear them all on Appetite for Destruction, there were no throwaways, but Tom Zutaut who signed them still thought that they needed maybe one more song before they're ready to go in the studio. And it just, that was a dark time. And in those four or five months, anything could have happened. They could have died. They could have got, they could have died on their own. They could have gotten killed. They could have gone to jail. They could have broke up and most likely would have been dropped from the record company or all of the above. Okay. So that's what was on the table. They were getting evicted. They just... everything was just utter chaos and no new music was coming. But all of a sudden somewhere in the middle of May they came up with You're Crazy just because they weren't even trying to write a song, it just naturally happened. But that wasn't enough to have Tom Zutaut say, "Okay, let's go to the studio." But in the middle of August or towards the end of August they came up with Sweet Child O' Mine and Mr. Brownstone in the same week. That was enough to say to Tom, "Okay, you guys are ready for pre-production." And, you know, Alan was instrumental. I remember that's about when Alan came in because right when they were in pre-production, they also coincidentally ended up coming up with, It's So Easy. And that's right when I first met Alan. That's right when he first came. I thought it, I thought it. It's weird how my phone rang after I put it on silent. Anyways-
ML: Modern technology, right?
MC: Yeah. I mean, I flipped the red switch. It's silent, right? Yeah. It's still, it's still ringing. That's when it all that's when Alan stepped in and I remember seeing him for the first time at a rehearsal. And he was trying to, you know, he neatly stepped in and was trying to send people on errands that you go here, you go get this, you get that, so Alan was kind of just got in there and started juggling the balls around.
ML: Yeah. And he did, he did a great job. Just before I get into the whole Guns N' Roses stuff, cause I love Guns. Since you were, you grew up with Slash, there is that story where he was going to go join poison or had auditioned to be Poison, he was going to be the CC DeVille before CC. Do you remember that time at all? And how serious of a flirtation was it?
MC: It wasn't serious at all, but I'll tell you how that all went down. When Poison first moved here from Pennsylvania to get their act going. They had a couple gigs up there, they were doing well, but they knew they needed to come to Los Angeles to really get on-
ML: To make it happen.
MC: Well, now those days are gone. You can come to Los Angeles and find a desert out here. You're not going to make it anymore in Los Angeles. But in those days, that was the time to do it. They came out and the first gig they ever actually saw was at Madame Wong's West and it was Hollywood Rose. That was the first gig they saw. And right away, Matt Smith, who was the guitar player for Poison, recognized that Slash had what it needed. You know, Slash was the guy. Although he wasn't looking to move out of Poison yet, but he knew that Slash had something. And then they started gigging. They had another gig that - I guess Vicki Hamilton might have been managing them - and they requested to have Hollywood Rose play with them. And so Hollywood Rose opened for them at the Troubadour a few months after that. And they were hanging out and I met Matt because I was an Aerosmith fan and so was Slash and so was Matt and Matt's roadie, Paul. And I had this huge Aerosmith collection so I took him to my house and we hung out. And so we were all friends and nothing, just like, "Hello, hey, what's going on?" Then what happened was Matt got his girlfriend pregnant, wanted to go home and start a family back to Pennsylvania and wanted Slash to replace him. But Slash wasn't really on board because he didn't want to shoot silly string in the air and say, "Hey, my name's Slash," because they all have a point where they, you know, it's kind of bubblegum rock at that, you know, all that silly string and everything. But Slash wasn't in a band right then. That was after Hollywood Rose broke up and there was really nothing going on. So I said, you know, "You really should go, obviously you're going to get the job because you're good enough and, you know, the guitar player wants you to replace him." But he just didn't really want to do it. I said, "Well, you know, they probably have a record deal coming up and it's this good stepping stone. You'll get in there, you'll make some noise and you know, somebody will spot you and you'll be somewhere else." So, you know, I actually had to push him to do it. I actually drove him to see them at Radio City in Santa Ana, you know, on a Saturday night gig for that gig. And I was sick as a dog and I still drove them there. That's how badly I wanted him to... My job was to get Slash to the next level, and the next level was to get him noticed. Because I saw how good he was and how talented he was, and I wanted him to step out of Los Angeles and get into something and hit the ground running. But that's what happened. But at the audition, I didn't even go with him to the audition, but he kind of probably, he did it. He learned the songs, he played it, but they can see that he didn't really want to join the band. And then C.C. walked in right after him and he knew that C.C. would get the job because C.C. had that look and obviously really wanted to join that band. So, and was a good fit for what they did Slash really wouldn't have been a good fit. But-
ML: I agree with you by the way, a lot of people say, "Oh, you know, if Neil Peart wasn't [?]", it's like, no, it doesn't work. You know, if Eddie Van Halen was in Poison, no, it doesn't work. C.C.'s right.
MC: You just, you're right about Eddie Van Halen, but Kiss, let me tell you something. I'm gonna tell you a story that Slash doesn't have to remember. And this could have been a turning point regarding Kiss. 1982, Ace Frehley was out of Kiss, but nobody knew it, unless you're inside the industry. And I was a pretty big music fan and I didn't hear anything about it. But anyway, Slash was working two jobs, Business Card Clocks for $6 an hour. And he was working at a Hollywood music store, which was where Genghis Cohen is now on Melrose and Fairfax. Anyways, the owner of that store, his name was Hiro. He's a Japanese guy. He could clearly see that in between no customer Slash would plug a guitar into an amp and doodle around it. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Slash knew what he was doing. So he got word over to his contacts that when he knew that Kiss was looking for a guitar player, and actually recommended Slash for the job. However, Slash was 17 at the time. I was there when Paul Stanley called Slash at Business Card Clocks, and I could hear Slash answering the questions. And it's, "Yeah, I can do it," "Yeah, I could pull that up." The questions were, "Would you be able to record?" "Are you good enough to record?" "Can you tour?" But so everything was going good until he realized Slash was 17. He didn't really wanna take a deeper look and have Slash learn a few songs and come down to the studio, but I bet you, had Slash come to the studio, Slash had an image back then too. He wore moccasins, he just, he had the rock and roll image. As soon as he plugged in that amp and they hear him play, the way he hits the notes, the way he learns the songs, Slash would have been in Kiss, I guarantee it. And I don't know how long he would have stayed in Kiss, cause I don't know if they would have paid him properly. But he certainly would have been in Kiss and he probably would have gotten noticed and maybe pulled out like, you know, Stevie Vaughn was in David Bowie's band for five minutes and then, you know, went off on his own. But Guns N' Roses might not have, you know, they had some, some Izzy and Axl were a good team and Duff certainly was good at what he was doing. But I don't know if they would have had, you know, without Slash, you know, I think you needed all five of those guys at that time.
ML: I agree.
MC: That was definitely a team effort. You know, even if Izzy started a song, Slash would change it and put his two cents into it. Duff would add something and, you know, Steven put the drums on there. Just, you know, even if you take Steven out and you try to listen to Rocket Queen without Steven or some, you know, a handful of those other songs, you know, maybe you hear it, Think About You with a different drummer, you wouldn't know the difference. But for most of those songs, there would be a difference. And so that's just, okay. So I put my book out, Reckless Road in almost 2008. I don't know if you have a copy. Do you have a copy?
ML: I think I do actually, yes.
MC: Okay, so anyways, at the time we were putting that book together, we were talking about also doing a documentary. And you know, at that time, you know, Guns N' Roses was going in a different direction, Slash and Axl weren't talking, Axl kinda wanted to bury that old Guns N' Roses and do something with the new band. Nobody was on the same page and there was no way we were gonna be able to do a proper documentary with the music and sync rights and everything that goes with it. However, we had the people, we had most of the people, we had the roadies and the managers and, I didn't find Alan Niven at the time, I couldn't find his contact. Now, obviously I can contact him, but back then the Internet wasn't as good as it is now and there was a few people like Rob Gardner, we couldn't find, he was the original drummer with Tracii Guns and LA Guns, and he was the first drummer in Guns N' Roses, couldn't find him. After we got the book out, we found him. So, now we could catch up. But during the pandemic, everyone's zooming back and forth. And even on the news, there's no guests in your studio. Everything's, you know, the world's gotten used to the zoom thing. And Jason Porath, who was my co author for Reckless Road, and pretty much made that book happen. He started thinking, you know, during the pandemic, he's working from home or not working and thinking, "Wow, this would be a good time to catch up on that documentary." And now we found a few more people that weren't involved the first time around. And we have some, you know, the videos that we recorded, the interviews that we did with Robert John, who was a photographer, you know, Slash stuff, Steven, who did we get? We got Tom Zutaut, we got Mike Klink, we got Vicki Hamilton, we got a bunch of people on video, some people we got on audio because we didn't have the budget to fly them here from where they were. Like, you know, my Michelle Young and, you know, different roadies or people that were in the previous bands that now moved away. So we have that stuff so we could intertwine it. So it started out, we did a few experimentals with it. We did episode one like four different times and they're completely different. They just changed every time. So now when people say, I saw episode one, it was really good. I don't even know which one is episode one anymore. That's how many episode ones I've seen, but they're all good because you're getting information that most people don't know. And even if some of it's in the book, it doesn't mean everyone has seen the book and I think it's more powerful when you see the person saying it themselves, rather than just reading it in a book. And there's visuals, you know, with a podcast, you have audio. You know, I recorded all those songs. Every show that Guns ever played in Los Angeles, maybe with the exception of one that I missed, I recorded them. So the first... OK, there's 12 songs and Appetite for Destruction. I was there for 10 of them the first time they were played.
ML: Let me just ask you about that. You recorded all the shows just on a cassette Walkman thing, and they sound horrible or did you get soundboard and you have real?
MC: Walkman and they don't sound horrible. Some of them are good because I was smart. I put a little microphone. I had that in my pocket because I've also taken pictures, and I brought the microphone out and put it on my watch. I was careful not to make too much noises with that. A couple shows were a little muddy, but a lot of the shows are actually very clean. There was some board tapes that I did, I was smart enough to get once I figured out how to talk to deal with the sound man and, you know-
ML: Slip him 20 bucks.
MC: Yeah, the problem with those board tapes are the vocals are way too loud and everything, because the vocals were, Axl's going through the board mostly and the band was so loud that they didn't need the board. So you're getting an echo. You're getting an echo through the amps into the microphone and Axl's. So it's, yes, it's true. I used to be so OCD that I would take the board tape and take the one I made and get, I try to sync them together, one in the right channel, one in the left channel. And I had one of those tape players that you could slow and speed down the speed. And when you start to hear them echo, cause you know, they're all little different speeds. If you try to play them at the same time, one would start to go a little faster than the other, and you'd start to hear like an echo. And then when that echo came, I'd try to speed it up or slow it down. And, you know, I did all that and just to have some fun with it. But in the end, honestly, the raw material sounds great. You know, when they first time they played Welcome to the Jungle was July 20th at the Troubadour. That was the first time I even heard it. I didn't even hear it at a rehearsal. It was brand new and they they just knocked it out. I was like, "Wow!" you know, I knew they were a great band. I knew they were a good fit. Some of those musicians went, you know, intertwined in Hollywood Rose back and forth. And didn't work that time because Steven still had double bass drums and Izzy exited as soon as Slash entered. And you just didn't have, yeah, you had Axl, Slash, and Steven, but it wasn't, you know, it lasted three months. You could barely hear Axl. Songwriting was okay. It just needed something else to it, I guess, a little bit of magic from Izzy and Duff. And one of Steven's bass drums to disappear. And when Slash joined Guns N' Roses, he was in Black Sheep, actually. Another band I made him join. It was a heavy metal band. I'm sure you know who they were. Anyways, you probably knew Willie Bass.
ML: Yes, he passed away last year, I believe, unfortunately.
MC: Yeah, I think it was actually a couple years ago.
ML: Yeah, Willie was a great guy, him and I got along great.
MC: Slash was in the band just for one song. He had just joined, he learned the songs. It wasn't really what he does, but he pulled it up well. And the first gig they did was Slash was at the Country Club May 31st, '85. And that's exactly when Tracii and Rob Gardner walked from GN'R. And they had a gig booked at the Troubadour the next week. And they had a gig, some gigs up north, in Seattle and, you know, Oregon. And, you know, they came and they said, "All right, so we know Slash already, you've worked in Hollywood Rose. Okay, it's all good. We need you, you know? And we need Steven too," because Rob left. And so Steven and Slash joined and they had like a couple rehearsals and they played that show at the Troubadour. But what was all different for me at that gig was they were so photogenic. I shot four rolls of film in just 35 minutes. And I didn't have an automatic winder. I had to take a picture and go click, you know, the old school. But that's how good no matter where I pointed the camera. It's a shot. I've shot Iron Maiden. I've shot you know Judas Priest. I shot hundreds of bands.
ML: Yeah, Prince you shot I've seen I saw your stuff. Your stuff's great, by the way.
MC: Thank you. I don't know about hundreds of bands. But I shot a lot of bands. And a lot of times you pull the camera and there's nothing. You just don't pull the trigger. You look at it and you don't like what you see. You just you wait for another moment with that gig, it didn't matter who I pointed the camera at, it was, there was a photo to be taken. And, you know, I noticed that the music slowed down. There was only one bass drum and you could hear Axl clean. And, you know, I heard Don't Cry that night, which I'd never heard that Izzy and Axl put that together before Slash joined. I already knew, you know, some of the other songs. Think About You, actually, I heard that night for the first time, but I knew like Anything Goes and, you know, Reckless and Shadow of Your Love. Anyway, so that gig opened my eyes like, "Hey, I think they got it this time." And they did debut, no, no, they didn't debut that. That was the next gig that I saw and they debuted Mama Kim, but it wasn't really their song anyways. But when they put together Jungle, that was like, "Wow!" Yes, Don't Cry was pretty powerful. And that showed you that they have the potential of at least being on the radio or whatever, you could see that that was a hit. But when Welcome to the Jungle came out. I recorded that night after the show. I listened to it in my car. I'm like, "Wow." Because you don't really know what you heard the first time you hear it, and it's live. But hearing it in the car for the next couple of days, like, "Oh, wow." And it sounds just like the album. I mean, this guitar solo is the same, everything. Two months later, they came up with Rocket Queen. And that sounds just like the record. And Axl gets out there and says, "This is the new one. It ain't much, but it's the best I could do. This song's for Barbie. This song's called Rocket Queen." And Barbie was a good friend of his. And actually, the tattoo on his arm is supposedly half supposed to be Barbie and half Monique or some girl that Axl dated.
ML: Let me just ask you one thing. Were you just following Guns N' Roses that time? Or were you on the Sunset Strip going to all the different shows and all the different bands?
MC: No, I was following Slash.
ML: OK, OK.
MC: Slash, you know, we were good friends in the fifth grade. And, you know, I noticed right away his artwork. He had dinosaurs and snakes and a jungle. And, you know, he was writing, he was doing this without tracing it out of a book. It was just coming out of his head, you know. So, you know, he had some talent. It was, and we were hanging out and whatever. And we, you know, we lived a block away from each other. We were carpooling to school. At some point we started writing BMX. And we weren't listening to music yet. And he was faster and better than anyone else. He'd fly off the jump and people would be taking camp. The flashes would be going off when he flew over the jump. Not anyone else, but him, because he was doing X games type of things, full tabletops and all these weird little things. And he just had something special about him. And I was documenting that. I was taking pictures of him jumping over Park La Brea Tarp Pits, flying off that ski jump that used to be there. But I lay under them and it looked like he's flying in the air and bunny hopping trash cans. Just, we caused trouble as kids. Then we lost touch for about a year because he got kicked out of John Burroughs Junior High School, probably for absenteeism or tardiness or smoking cigarettes or whatever, but he went to Bancroft. So we lost touch for about a year and just by default because we weren't in the same school. No one had cell phones yet. But at the summer school that like 10th grade we bumped into each other. His mom put him in Beverly Hills High Summer School for that summer and we just literally bumped into each other. I'm wearing an Aerosmith shirt, he's wearing a Zeppelin shirt. So like I said we weren't listening to music when we were hanging out so naturally we both got into music and we both liked the same bands. And he said, "Oh yeah, I've been playing guitar for about six months. I'm in this band called Tidus Sloan." Right then and there I knew that this is gonna be good. And I went with him that day. My mom came to pick me up and now I'm going with him. I went with him to a garage. Adam Greenberg was the drummer. And I knew Adam Greenberg from John Burroughs. And right away, it was just what I thought. He had this BC Rich Mockingbird plugged it into a Sun Amp. They were playing Heaven and Hell. It was so heavy. I mean, Tony Iommi would have been like, "Wow!" But then, you know, and that impressed me that he can get such a thick, rich sound and he could get controlled feedback and all that stuff. But when they were playing some originals and he went into the guitar solo or even some blues jams and he was improvising, right away I was getting goosebumps saying, "Okay." So he's only been playing six months. So he's not technically like, you know, can do all this stuff, what he is doing, it's powerful. And so I instantly started helping him get to the next level. Whatever he needed, a new pack of guitar strings, go to Santa Ana to look at an amp or buy a guitar from the Recycler, just whatever. Just help him get the equipment that he needs, whether it's an effect pedal, a ride somewhere, just whatever. I was fully promoting him and telling it all my friends, you got to come, they got to party on this date and just trying to get a crowd there. And when he finally eventually, you know, ended up in the Appetite For Destruction lineup, it wasn't just him. I knew Axl had it. I didn't know about the rest of them. And then when I saw what they were doing, putting these songs together, Paradise City, My Michelle, you know-
ML: Great songs. Let me ask you just real quick, because you touched real quick on Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns and stuff. Tracii Guns is a fantastic guitar player. We know that. He can play circles around people. Why didn't it work with Axl? Where did it just not connect? Was it personality? Was it just, they didn't have the songs because he's a great player.
MC: It's funny that you say personality because, okay, so Slash and Tracii were in rival bands and Tracii had been playing for years before Slash had been started. So, Tracii was playing Led Zeppelin covers and he was doing it, you know, and he had this nice equipment and a nice guitar. And so I remember going to a party with Slash and Pyrrhus was Tracii's Guns first band. They were playing that party and I was like, "Wow, look at this guy. This guy is pulling it off," and "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know him." But so anyways, when Hollywood Rose fell apart, Axl immediately joined up with Tracii and that was like, that was the Slash's rival. And, you know, he only lasted two gigs with that. So it fell apart after two gigs. And those gigs, by the way, were a week apart. So Axl might've only been in the band like two weeks, maybe three weeks, or at least that I know of. And so Hollywood Rose kind of, you know, fell apart when that fell apart. So what happened was Tracii and Axl kind of hooked up again towards the end of that year, towards the end of 84. And Tracii didn't want to join Rose or Hollywood Rose because then Axl would have been the man in charge and Axl didn't want to join Tracii's band, you know, LA Guns because then Tracii's the god. And we already went through that and it's not going to work. So it was two personalities that were banging heads. But they decided, "How about this? How about we start a third band and it will be a side project? It won't be any one of our bands. It'll just be both of our bands. We'll both kind of, you know, be equals in it." So that's how Guns N' Roses started. It was a side project. And, you know, Izzy was back in the picture and, you know, they had Rob already was there and they picked up a bass player, Ole, that was, you know, what was in LA Guns. And he didn't, he only, he didn't even make it to one gig. He quit the band pretty quickly. And, you know, then they ended up with that. But back to your question, we don't have a real reason and Tracii keeps ghosting us but... But the funny thing is he ghosted me for Reckless Road. I mean I had a cell number, "Hi, this is Tracii, leave a message." I left a message and he never called me back. This was in 2007. Then I bumped into him at a memorial service for a mutual friend and he apologized. "Hey, I didn't realize you were really putting a nice," you know, "this really great project together. It's the history it tells him what it is. It's not anyone's opinion. It's just a bunch of facts right there for you. It's a scrapbook of facts. And so if you ever need me again, let me know, you know, and I'll be there." Well, now we're doing this podcast. We never got Tracii's input and he didn't reply, you know, he didn't come back on it. But I think he might not like the ending of where that got him. Because if you ask Axl, you're going to get one opinion. So you can't really, you can't just because Axl says this or as he says that, it doesn't mean that's what happened. Tracii has a side of the story too. So you're never gonna get the story out until you hear it from all of them and then you could make your own decisions. But from what I got is, they really didn't wanna go up north to that tour. It didn't sound very stable to them. The car wasn't that good. And they were right, the car did break down and they had a hitchhike. And it just, also there might have been, I'm not gonna say it in stone, but there might have been some argument between Axl and Tracii at the last gig before that at Dancing Waters, regarding how a song, the arrangement of a song that they were playing or something they wanted, one of them wanted to change and the other one disagreed. That's what I've gotten into it. But I'm sure Tracii doesn't have too much remorse because had he not left the band, yeah, they would have been a good band, but they wouldn't have had that Appetite For Destruction lineup, you wouldn't have Welcome to the Jungle, which was Slash's input. You wouldn't have had Paradise City. You wouldn't have had Rocket Queen. You wouldn't... There's so many songs you wouldn't have, it might not have been enough to get that band off the ground. Even though it would have been good, you know, they did have Don't Cry. They certainly certainly could put songs together. I remember seeing Izzy and Tracii around that time coming into Canter's. Because Tracii used to live a block away from Canter's on Orange Grove, I believe. And they would sit at the counter for hours writing lyrics and working on melodies. So sure, they would have produced songs-
ML: It wouldn't have been the same magic. I mean, a lot of people always say, "You need the reunion, you need this." It really is about the magic. Those five guys created the magic. And I can't see Axl Rose singing Sex Action quite frankly.
MC: But you know, here's the other thing about it. That magic also came from because how they were living. They were writing about what was going on. Hiding from the cops, you know, four of them are living in a shoe box that's not even, it's a studio for rehearsing, not for living. You know, there's no bathroom there. They have to go the alley to pee or go to Denny's to use the bathroom or something that was right behind Denny's. But you got that, Duff was living with a girlfriend, but the rest of them, if they struck out at night with whoever they were trying to sleep, spend the night at someone's house, they slept in the studio there. So when one of them picks up guitar and starts to work on something, the other guys are there to hear it. So the music is a true collaboration. Later, I'm not knocking at what happened later. I'm just saying later, Use Your Illusion, things change because now they are all living separately. They all have little mini studios in their house. And so Izzy will record a song in full before anyone even heard it and got to rip it apart or change something or change a riff, and then submit it to the band and then they work on it. So things got put together in a different fashion and what are they gonna write about now? The record company ripping them off? Or their lawyer screwing them or something. But so things are going to change. I'm not saying they lost their talent, not at all. It's a different set of circumstances.
ML: Let me ask you this because you're bringing up an interesting point and I want to bring it quickly to 2021. They reunited in 2016, they've done five years. The other day in Boston, they debuted this song, Absurd, which was Silkworms from 2001. Why do you think it's taken them so long to put out a new album? Is it just they can't get it legally? They're just in their own little planets like you're saying and they have their own studios and it's a different reality because five years, 10 songs off doesn't sound like hard work.
MC: I'm not an expert in what's going on. I'm not an expert. I know things that happen in '85, '86 and before that, I know things that happened after that. It pretty much falls apart for me around 2007 ish, but, so, you know, for me, there's a lot of emotions with what they do. And I don't really want to get into it, but you know, like, I can't comment on that because it's not, it's not a fair comment because it's just an opinion and my opinion doesn't mean it's right. I like to state to the facts that I know. And I kind of stay out of that. That's run by a machine basically. And so I can't get involved in why this, why that. It could be a number of factors in there. I can say I was really proud when I found out Axl was up there singing with AC/DC, that he pulled that off, you know-
ML: You know, that was great, by the way. I'm sorry, but I know and I've got my AC/DC font in the back and people have been bitching and moaning about Axl and AC/DC. I want a live album and DVD from that tour because he was fucking fantastic. And I'm saying he was fucking fantastic.
MC: We heard the Bon Scott stuff, he already proved that. And we knew that that's when I first time that I heard Axl sing. I said, it's Bon Scott got married that Janis Joplin. You know, it was that he well, that was one of his ranges. Axl, what makes it special is he has like five, six ranges. But you know, the It's So Easy voice is one of my favorites, too.
ML: Whole Lotta Rosie when they used to cover that.
MC: Yeah, A Whole Lotta Rosie. So anyways, you knew he could do that. But I was actually afraid he was going to hurt himself doing the Brian Johnson stuff. And he pulled it off. He certainly pulled it off. I watched some of that on YouTube and I was cringing. Even though he was doing, I wasn't cringing because it was bad. I was cringing because it was good. And, but I was afraid he was going to hurt himself because Axl is the type of person, the Axl I know, is a type of person that's going to give it 150%. You know, it's like victory or death. So he's going to hit that note, even if he shouldn't hit that note. You hear what I'm saying? So I was really proud that, that he took that, you know, that.... If we go back to 1984, when his goal was.... He was working at Tower Video and believe it or not, he set a bar. You know what his bar was? That no matter where I sleep, I don't care as long as I can get a gym membership so I can have a place to shower. Because if you'd sleep on someone's couch or you'd sleep, you'd find a girl hook up with a girl sleep there. Sometimes he'd strike out and he'd sleep at the stairwell of that Tower Video right behind, there's like a little corner in there. And so he said, "I don't care where I sleep as long as they have a place to shower." But I can go back to 1984 and say, guess what? Just as he's telling me that one day you are going to fill in for Brian Johnson, he would think I'm crazy. And on top of that, your own band is going to be bigger than AC/DC. And so, or as big or whatever, one of those bands that in 300 years from now, they're gonna still be relevant. Kids are gonna turn 14 and buy that Appetite For Destruction, how they buy it, I don't know. We don't know what the technology will be. But I guarantee you when it went during a baseball game and the closing picture comes out, someone's going to be playing Welcome to the Jungle.
ML: Yeah, listen, they're there. They are the new Beethoven in a sense that they are like a Mozart and a Beethoven where 350 years later, we're still listening to Symphony number five and Welcome to the Jungle. It's just it is. That's what's gonna happen.
MC: It's a tattoo. Right up there with the Stones and the Beatles and Zeppelin and Aerosmith. There's a good amount of bands, there's probably 20 bands that will stand the test of time when I say that, even in a thousand years from now. But yeah, so that's basically, my job is to get this information out that people don't know. I know this because I'm an Aerosmith fan and I was a huge Aerosmith collector. And I would kill to get some of this information, how they got to that first lineup of what, you know, what they, when they debuted this song or that song and, you know, stories that got lost on the cutting room floor, just, you know, and I don't know everything. I know a lot that I saw, but some of these other people, we got Chris Weber. And even though he participated in the book, we got him a lot better, a lot cleaner, because it was a different project. We just needed him comment a couple things for the book, which he did. And there's a few quotes, but on the podcast, you almost get a tear in your eye because it's so powerful. And same with Rob Gardner, although we didn't have him the first time, very powerful. And Adam Greenberg talks about, the drummer from Tidus Sloan, Slash's first band, he tells you he lays it down exactly how that came together, how it was working with Slash, recognizing that Slash was on a different level and they were way behind and they knew that he was gonna fly away at some point. But just getting that, it just makes it such an emotional documentary that it's just moving. It really is moving.
ML: It really is. And let me just quickly remind the folks that the video podcast is called The First 50 Gigs, Guns N' Roses, and the Making of Appetite for Destruction Season One, which is good news because that means there's probably going to be a Season Two. It launches August 19th, 19th, I should say, through Patreon, which is going to be very cool.
MC: There's also an exhibit that they're doing at the Roosevelt Hotel, which was cool because we used to go there for the Capitol record Swat Me[?] back in the eighties. It was at that hotel. And actually another point is Duff married his first wife Mandy at that hotel. So there's another thing there. But anyways, that's gonna be like a gallery of some images from the book or from what I captured. And also Jack Lue, who is, I don't know if he's been on your show, but he's very relevant in today's world. He photographs every single band he can. And he works with that, what's that? Days magazine? High... I can't think of the name of it. Like a heavy metal magazine in Los Angeles, High Wire Days or something.
ML: Something like that. I'm gonna look at it. The first 50 gigs, the exhibit is August 18th at 6pm at Roosevelt Hotel. And... Oh, I don't have the, I don't have the, well, there's a ticketing link, but anyway, you can just search that up. But Marc, this has been great, by the way. I never knew about Slash and Kiss. I knew about Richie Sambora in '82, I knew about Doug Aldrich in '82, all going for that Kiss gig. Did not know about Slash.
MC: Because he didn't make it. He didn't make it to the interview. He didn't get past the phone interview. And I'll tell you something funny. You know, Slash had a lot of alcohol in his brain and other things. And so, yeah, he remembers, like if you read his book, he remembers a lot of things, but he has them mixed up a little bit sometimes. And the stories are half right and half... It's two stories into one or the dates are wrong. But it's, you know, someone once said it doesn't matter how they remember it, so you got to go with it. But we were once doing an interview with Neils Oslauer[?], you know, the photographer, he was doing some kind of YouTube channel, but for some reason, this one never made it on because the project ended right after we recorded it. But I told this story and Slash looked at me really confused. And he was like, "I don't remember that at all." I said, "At all?" That was kind of a big deal that you had a chance to maybe be in Kiss, but it was such a brief moment in time. It's like, it happened so quick that, you know, "Okay, Paul Stanley is gonna call you today at two o'clock." Okay, two o'clock came that day and Paul Stanley called and then we never heard from him again. So it wasn't like something that was building up and he had to rehearse for it. It just like happened. But it is a story and it is out there.
ML: So I'm just imagining what creatures of the night with Eric Carr and Slash would have sounded like. I mean, that is damn, that would have been good. Not that we don't like Vinny, but slash.
MC: I know, I know, but certain things aren't meant to be, but another thing about Guns N' Roses is, you know, I knew they had the vocal range, I knew they had the songwriting, I knew they had the guitar playing and the sound, and they knew they had the image because a lot of bands don't have that. I remember as a kid going to Westwood and coming home with like a Zeppelin poster or an Aerosmith poster or something, and Michael Schenker with a Flying V poster, and you hang these all over your wall, but what band is there today that you'd want to get their poster and put it on your wall?
ML: BTS. [laughs]
MC: I'm not saying there's any good bands anymore. For example, Muse is a great band. I went to see him live and I fell asleep. There was no stage presence, there was no image. The music's good, but there's, you know, Guns N' Roses was the last of those bands that you could identify every member in the band and know exactly who's who. And there was a stage presence, there's something there. And yes, I saw the stage presence at that first show. Slash always had the stage presence, but for the rest of them. But what really kind of clicked, there was two shows after that that really set my mind, you know, to lift the bar even higher. They played the Street Scene, September 28th of '85, Los Angeles Downtown Street Scene, and Slash had just got a Les Paul three days before that. And so that was the finishing touch to, you know, to Slash's and the Les Paul image. But they got up there at 8.30 at night and they were supposed to play at 5.30 because the whole day was running late. Social Distortion was playing after them and people knew who they were. Nobody really knew who GN'R was. Before that they played in front of maybe 200 people. And so maybe there was 20, 30 people there that knew who GN'R was. Those people were not happy to see GN'R take that stage when the band they're waiting for is already three hours late. And they're throwing beer, they're spitting at the band, they're shaking the stage, they're throwing pieces of hamburgers and Guns N' Roses is just there, you know, just pushing harder and by the second song the crowd was eating out of their hands and they maintained that stage and they owned it, you know, and I'm taking pictures from behind the drum riser looking out to the crowd, you know, "Wow!" This look like Woodstock as far as I'm concerned, because the people just keep going back. You know, it might've only been 2000, but it looked like a lot. And, you know, it was crazy. And I shot off like four rolls of film in that 20 minute set. That's how good it was. It just was just great. So much energy. That's what made me realize they are not only a great band, but they are a stadium band. Even though that's not a stadium, I saw that they can grab that whole crowd, not just the crowd that came to see them, but they could grab the people that had no idea who they were and pull them in. I saw it again when they opened for Ted Nugent in Black and Blue at Santa Monica Civic after they got signed, still nobody in that crowd... I shouldn't say nobody. There's 4,000 people there. Probably 300 of them knew who GN'R was 400 of them. And you know what? They blew Ted off the stage and, and the whole crowd was cheering for them after every song. It sounded like a live concert where you hear, with the band stops and you hear all the audience cheering. It wasn't just a couple of claps. I mean, so they also, and that was a big stage. That was the first time they were on a big stage and they used every inch of that stage. They made it work.
ML: It's amazing that you just know because, and I'll tell a couple of things. When I first saw Guns N' Roses open for Aerosmith in Saratoga Springs, I've seen a bunch of openers before and you just went, "Eh," but you saw Guns and you just went, "Yep, that band's gonna be something." And I felt the same way. Listen, a couple of years after I saw the Black Crows open, I guess for Aerosmith again, and you just went, "Yep," you know.
MC: I know when Guns first got out of Los Angeles, they went on tour at The Cult. Obviously The Cult was touring arenas and nobody really knew what Guns N' Roses were. After Tom Zutaut told me that every city that they played in, the next day, there would be a spike in sales. People go out and buy Appetite for Destruction from those record stores in that city. And same happened with Motley Crue and Alice Cooper. And then, you know, then, you know, Welcome to the Jungle wouldn't get played on the radio because the radio station, MTV, I'm sorry, not the radio. Well, yeah, radio too, but other than KNAC or those heavy metal underground stations. MTV refused to play Welcome to the Jungle video and they didn't want to lose sponsors because they thought Guns N' Roses was associated with, you know, raping girls and bad, you know because of the album cover and you know, what I'm just drugs and whatever-
ML: I will say the that original album cover was in bad taste. I mean respectfully.
MC: It was a joke. Axl used to go to Tower Video and Tower Records and you know, they had these kind of weird postcards that there and he'd come home with like two or three of those postcards and he just loved those little fun little, you know, little things. And he was joking. He said, "Here's our album cover." And he was joking. And the other guys said, "Totally." And, you know, I don't know how they got that approved, but I remember I was sitting in Tom Zutaut's office after the record came out, like, I don't know, a few months later, working on something with him. And he showed me the new cover. And he said, "Yeah, that got banned. This is going to be the new cover." I went to Aaron's records on Melrose and bought all of them. There was like 14 of them there because it was, you know, Guns N' Roses was known in Los Angeles. So they, Aaron records stocked a bunch of them. I just grabbed them all, brought them to the front desk and they were 5.99 and bought them all because I knew that it's a collector's item one day. And still people come to me for them every now and then. But there's just, there's a lot. I mean, when Tom Zutaut got MTV to play Welcome to the Jungle, they only agreed to play it once at like, you know, three in the morning. Our time, I'm sorry. Yeah, three in the morning, our time and maybe two in the morning, our time, five o'clock in the morning New York time. And their switchboard blew up. "Play that again," "play that again." So they had no choice but to throw it in rotation. And by that point, they probably had sold 200,000 records. And it's been a year, you know, almost a year. And that Jungle hit the airwaves and it wasn't soon after that, maybe it might have taken Sweet Child to come out also, but they were selling 200,000 records a week after that. And so then I was like, "All right, they're out there. They're out there. That's it."
ML: And you could tell. It's amazing how you can tell. On that, I've got to get going because it's actually my daughter's 18th birthday. We have a dinner starting in less than half an hour. But Marc, a great pleasure. Let's do a part two at some point. I'll get Alan on and we'll trade stories. The First 50 gigs Guns N' Roses and the Making of Appetite for Destruction, a visual podcast, starts on Patreon on August 19th. And on that, as we say in Montreal, merci. That was fascinating. Love it.
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Re: 2021.08.18 - Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon - Interview with Marc Canter
by Soulmonster Mon Jan 06, 2025 7:44 pm
Transcribed this. I am on fire.
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Re: 2021.08.18 - Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon - Interview with Marc Canter
by Blackstar Tue Jan 07, 2025 3:42 am
You are!Soulmonster wrote:Transcribed this. I am on fire.
I guess this means I should start adding missing articles from 2022.
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Re: 2021.08.18 - Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon - Interview with Marc Canter
by Soulmonster Tue Jan 07, 2025 7:03 am
Blackstar wrote:Soulmonster wrote:Transcribed this. I am on fire.
You are!
I guess this means I should start adding missing articles from 2022.
It is hard to say what my progress will be, but if I keep this up then we will be there in a few weeks.
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