2021.10.05 - Appetite For Distortion - Interview with Marc Canter

"The First 50 Gigs: Guns N' Roses and The Making of Appetite for Destruction" is a new video podcast from Marc Canter. From Canter's Deli, Marc shares stories about GN'R's beginnings and what we can expect from his new passion project about his friends in Guns N' Roses.



Transcript:

Brando: Welcome to the podcast, Appetite for Distortion, episode number 306. My name is Brando. And if you're watching this on Zoom, I am coming to you virtually from Canter's Deli. I'm sure you can tell that I'm not really in Canter's Deli with the terrible green screen that Zoom gives you. However, our guest today is actually in Canter's Deli, Mr. Marc Canter himself. What's going on, Mr. Marc?

Marc Canter: Hey, how you doing?

B: I'm doing well. I'm doing well. It's been a while. I know you do a lot of interviews, especially with the 51st gigs, but we had you on a long time ago with with Jack Lou, who I know has helped you with this project. And you guys have been friends for years. So that was a while ago. So it's cool to get to talk to you kind of one on one and kind of take my request. Can we zoom from the Guns N' Roses booth? So thank you for sitting there for me.

MC: Here we are. Here we are.

B: Oh, you know what? See, I got to. I can change now. I'm going to have fun with my virtual background so I can actually pretend like I'm part of Guns N' Roses. See, now I'm in the Guns N' Roses booth now too. I put on that famous photo of a... It's like I'm really there.

MC: I love that technology. The technology that you're using is the same thing the whole reason why we ended up doing this podcast is because it's here. The technology has really moved forward in the last few years. So it makes it a lot easier to get things done. When we were putting Reckless Road together. We talked about doing, part of the deal was to do a book and also documentary, but documentaries are very expensive and you got to fly people out to interview them and equipment and rental, it ends at a studio time to mix it and edit it where a podcast could just, this last year of COVID has really sped things up and everything's going on Zoom these days. So we found that what makes it great is if we did a great documentary, what would it be? Two hours long? If you do a podcast, it could be a hundred hours long. You know, each episode is like 30 minutes, 28 minutes, whatever. And there's no edit. Yeah. A little bit gets on the floor because those interviews are about an hour long. And then we ended up using 30 minutes, but in a documentary, you would lose 90% of it would be on the cutting room floor. So this way you get more tidbits. What information somebody, some editor may think is useless information, that information a fan would love to know about. So it's just more thorough.

B: That's a good point. How many movies or TV shows or podcasts that there's something comes out, like the things that are left out, the extras, the deleted scenes, and you're like, why was that deleted? That was great. Cause they have to fit into a certain time. And with podcasting, you're right. Which is why I've spent over 300 episodes talking about one band. I don't know how that's happened, but you're absolutely right and smartly so. So I guess what was the first catalyst? Because I wasn't doing Zoom interviews before the pandemic. So it was when everything shut down, I guess you took time? And what can I do now to be creative with all?

MC: Well, yeah, watch the news at all during the pandemic, which I'm sure most people started watching the news more. You'd see that instead of having their guests in the studio, they're just at home or, you know, somewhere else. And it just became at first it was like, okay, that's the best they can do because of COVID. But now COVID is over. They're still doing it. So plus, but it's, you know, it's settled down, things are open. But so it shows you that the world has evolved a little bit and what's acceptable. And there's nothing wrong with what we're doing. We're talking, you see me, I see you. We're all good. So it just makes it nice. I mean, there's so many tidbits. I could tell you so many stories that nobody knows. We're gonna talk about, and you decide when, we're gonna talk about Slash's audition for Kiss, which everyone's gonna say, what? I never heard about that. And if you ask Slash, he might even say, "What? I don't remember that." Because I once was in an interview with Slash and I brought it up and he looked really confused. But we'll get to that. There's just little tidbits. Also Slash was in a Michael Schenker video. Nobody knows this. He played a dead Jimi Hendrix on stage in the song Rock Will Never Die from 1984. Got paid 75 bucks to do that. It was out in the valley somewhere and we didn't know it was a Michael Schenker video. He got called, he got casted for that to play a dead Jimi Hendrix and I drove him up there and we were trying to figure out what band it was and then I saw Macaulay walking around, I thought it was Ted Nugent. So I said, "I think you're in a Ted Nugent video." I was so confused. And then all of a sudden we saw Michael Schenker and then I figured it out.

B: That's cool.

MC: There's little bits of information in these podcasts where we can dig a lot deeper. We originally did Reckless Road, which is my Guns N' Roses book, Making of the Appetite for Destruction. It went out in like 2008. When we first did it, it was my scrapbook of all, you know, covers the first 50 gigs, photos, flyers, ticket stuff, you know, clippings from the magazine, ads from band magazine, whatever, just mostly that. And then there's, you know, we transcribed what they said between those shows, because I recorded all those shows. That makes it fun, you know, you hear it, you see they're about to play Rocket Queen, and Axl says, "This is the new one, it ain't much, but it's the best. I could do. This song is for Barbie. This song is called Rocket Queen." It's just more powerful because if that's your favorite song, now you know where it debuted and what he said before he announced it. It just gives you a little bit deeper. It gives the fans a little bit extra. I wish somebody would have done this for Aerosmith because I'm a big Aerosmith collector. This would be a treasure trove for me to get this information. It's also good because even if you're not a huge fan of the band, you know, you're not a Guns N' Roses fan, but you're a fan of music and how bands get put together. This is a good, this is a, I mean, I have the access on, well I was there with Slash the whole time, but I also can access the people that I know that the world has forgotten about. And like Chris Weber or Rob Gardner, who was, you know, Chris Weber was the original guitar player in Rose and Hollywood Rose and wrote with Izzy and wrote with Axl and, you know, they lived in his house. So you're getting a perspective of someone that was there and how they felt watching that evolve and go to the next level and to the next level. Same with Adam Greenberg, who is the drummer for Tidus Sloan and Roadcrew. And you'll see that he talks about how he knew it was only a matter of time because he could see that Slash was at seven levels ahead of him. And even though it works for what they were doing, he knew that Slash would grow out and move on and do whatever. So you get these perfectives of not just one person telling the story or not just a band, even though it's important to have the band member tell the story, because of course they're the celebrity, they're the ones that made the music and you want to hear what's coming out of the horse's mouth, but unfortunately, well I shouldn't say unfortunate, fortunately sometimes a lot of time has gone by a little too much alcohol, you know, whatever, and they get it, some of these things are blurry and they don't really weren't paying too much attention to the details and they don't, they even get their own books.... They don't do it on purpose, they try to get it right, but they mix stories up and they mix dates up and they're a year off or the wrong place or the wrong venue. Things get twisted a little bit. But when you hear it from the people that were only there for a year, their life stopped in the music business, they remember that as if it were yesterday because that's all it was just you're only asking them to remember one year. You're asking these guys to remember 35 years of rock and roll. It's a lot harder sometimes. We did interviews Slash, Duff and Steven when we were putting together Reckless Road. We did it on video, but we transcribed what they said in the book. It was really to fill in the book, but also it was for the documentary that we never made. So now that we're doing this, if something comes up in that subject matter, we could cut back to their interviews. Steven's we redid because he wasn't in the best shape back then and we have an episode that Steven did live with us, about a month and maybe six weeks ago and we might get him again because that took us a long time. We were having internet problems and fights got set up. We only really had like 15 minutes to interview him and then he had to go do some business meeting. But so it didn't all go as planned, but still... And we can continue it. It's a short episode. It's not a big deal. But so that's what we're focusing on is, oh, I got sidetracked, my own story. So my plan was to get this book, while they designed the book, let's see what's, because there was a little bit of information I gave you, what was going on between the shows around that time, or just what was going on, where they were living, what was going on. And, you know, like for instance, oh, okay, so, I was then going to look to see how much room I have and look at the page spreads and then make some comments that weren't in the book yet, but because we interviewed like 20, you know, people like Tom Zutaut, and, you know, Mike Clink, who produced the band, the album, and the roadies and some, you know, had a piece of that or were involved in it some way, Steve Thompson, who helped mix the record, everybody's got good knowledge to add in there. So by the time they added that all in, the book was overfilled and there was not one smidgen of room to get one word in there. So that being said, I didn't get to tell these little tidbits stories that of information, what was going on, like I'll just throw one at you now. In 1984 when Slash had met Axl and they were just, you know, in Hollywood Rose, fooling around for about three months, he was working a Tower Video on Sunset. And he didn't, he was basically homeless, but he would find someone's couch to live on, a friend's couch, or even, you know, maybe if he couldn't stay on the couch because the, you know, the girlfriend or whatever didn't want that, him hanging around too long, they'd let him sleep in the car, or he'd hook up with a girl and sleep there. But every now and then he would strike out. And if he struck out, and it came two, three in the morning, nowhere to go, he'd go to Tower Video and sleep on the stairwell. And so he told me right around that time, his goal, he set this goal, was to get a gym membership. And if he can get a gym, not to work out, but so he could have a place to shower, no matter where he slept. Even if it was in the back of someone's car, you still need a shower. Now, if you slept at someone's house, you could always use their shower, but that wasn't always the case. So that was the first bar that was set. So that's these little tidbits of information didn't get in Reckless Road. And now with this podcast, it's endless. I could get any little detail I want in. And besides that, I don't have all the information. I just have some cool stories to tell. But, you know, like I said, we felt earlier, I was telling you that found Rob Gardner. We didn't have... We couldn't find him at the time of making Reckless Road. The internet wasn't as... well not everybody had I don't think Instagram was around then. Or  if it was? I don't think it was but anyway, maybe there was my space who knows. But there might have been a Facebook but not everybody was on it. So we I was looking for these people couldn't find them. And actually I found Tracii Guns. But he didn't want to participate. He was kind of ghosting me, because he was you know, Tracii was staying quiet back then and he didn't go out much. He didn't do much. He wasn't sure, he didn't trust people. But later on I actually met at a at a memorial service for a mutual friend. I think that was like 2010 maybe, and he apologized because he got my messages and he apologized for ghosting me and he said if you know he'd help again and the book was great because it's not anyone's opinion. It's actual facts. You know, it' an encyclopedia of facts put together. And it just, you can't dispute it. It is what it is. That's what it is. That's what happened. So he said he'd help, but now we're looking for him again and he's gone back to the ghosting, but we contacted his management. Management said he was booked for the next year. So that's, I don't know, a podcast takes like, what, 20 minutes to do, but whatever it is, for whatever reason, doesn't really matter because we did get [?]

B: I think you're saying Raz Cue, you're slowing down a little bit. It's so funny when you zoom sometimes, it's like a drive through, "Raaaaaz Cuuuuuue". You're not getting drunk, I understand. And I will say with Tracii, he's very responsive on Twitter and doing my podcast. Obviously, I wanted to speak with him as well and said he would not do podcasts. And then I see him all the time. Then, I can't reveal how I got in contact with LA Guns manager, but we spoke on the phone and he likes me. So apparently Tracii, maybe in a... Actually he's supposed to, they said October. So I got to follow up on my interview with Tracii Guns. Maybe you know what? Maybe he's going to go to me as well. I'll let you know.

MC: I think once he sees these very like four episodes out, plus we're doing bonus episodes. Once he sees these, he's going to feel more comfortable. And I'm sure he'll contact me.

B: Oh, yeah. No, he's he's very cool. I think is. You know what? Just like the reason why we had a little conversation before we started recording. There are just a lot of interviewers out there or podcasts out there that just want salacious stuff. And, you know, he was in Guns N' Roses for, you know, he was in the, the formation, foundation of it, but he's still making LA Guns music. So I guess, you know, if all people want to talk to him is about Guns N' Roses still since 1985, I get being annoyed by it-

MC: But he brings it up. He brings it up. He tweeted. No, he tweeted something about a month ago, say he found an old picture, actually he took it from one of the podcasts that we put out, an ad. And he said, "If nothing else, we did start some shit," or something like that. So he's obviously aware of it. But I think if he's not comfortable, that's cool. I mean, I remember Tracii and Izzy, it must have been at the time they put that together because see it when, see Tracii was always a rival of Slash's. And even though Tracii had been playing for like six years before Slash even picked up a guitar and he was really good at it, Slash got to his level real quick. Slash was a quick learner. And you can't help it, but they're rivals because he was in Pyrrhus and Slash was in Tidus Sloan. You know, they're rivals, but they're friends, but rivals. But so when Hollywood Rose fell apart, what did Axl do? He joined up with Tracii. And that was like, you know, that was like to Slash... Axl called me after that and asked me if I could shoot LA Guns for, you know, and get some photos. And I didn't tell Slash, cause I didn't want him to think that I was betraying him. Cause I was also friends with Axl. Even though they were together only three months, I made friends with Axl at that time. But that only, with a short lived, it was only two gigs and then that fell apart. But they all kind of knew each other. What I can remember, and even though I knew Izzy back then, because Izzy actually left Hollywood Rose the minute Slash joined, they were together for one rehearsal and then Izzy disappeared and joined London. But what I do remember is Izzy coming into Canter's with Tracii, and Tracii lived a block away, he lived literally one block away. And so they would come sit on the counter and drink coffee and they were working on music. They didn't have their instruments, but they were like writing and maybe, you know, making melodies and, you know, just writing. And sometimes I'd stop and talk to them for a little bit. And that must've been right around the time that Guns N' Roses started because Axl had already joined LA Guns and it fell apart. So why it fell apart, I don't know. But what I make from it is... And because, you know, LA Guns got stalled[?] for a minute, and maybe they still were looking for a singer, and, you know, they asked Axl to rejoin, and Axl's all, "If I join you, we're just gonna fight again, because you're in charge of that band," and, you know, "and if I join Hollywood Rose, we're gonna fight, because, you know, Axl's in charge of Hollywood Rose, and maybe we should keep our bands and start a side project that we're all just all together in charge, and there's really no one's in control, and we'll just, you know, we'll record some music and we'll have some fun. We're not gonna take it too seriously." So that's how Guns N' Roses got together. And the fact that Tracii was in Canter's writing with Izzy, I'm willing to bet you that was probably January of '85 and the start of Guns N' Roses. And so that was like, lasted like four months because then Tracii and Rob left. So by the time the Appetite for Destruction line-up got together, it's not like they were all strangers, because Duff had actually joined Roadcrew for a week. He answered an ad that Slash and Steve had put in the L.A. Recycler, and they actually met at Canter's here because it was a good neutral place. And Duff didn't stick around because there was no singer, and they jammed. They might have actually, believe it or not, worked on some riffs that ended up in Rocket Queen that just fell apart, you know, at the time. And so Duff didn't leave because they didn't get along, he left because he didn't think, you know, it was ready to go yet. It wasn't a band that had a singer and ready to just, you know, Duff already toured with punk bands and he was not, he didn't want to start in the middle of a band, although he knew Slash was a great guitar player. It just only lasted about a week and then kind of Duff moved on. But long story short, when Slash and Steven were asked to join Guns N' Roses, when Tracii and Rob left, this was the end of May of, you know, '85, when I got there to see what was going on, Duff was there and I'm like, "Oh, hey! I know that guy." And I already knew Izzy from a year before. And of course I was friends with Axl. And so it's like, "Okay, I know everyone in this band. This is kind of cool." And then what changed it all, and I swear to God, had to make it work was Izzy and Duff stole one of Steven's bass drums while he went to smoke a cigarette or went to the bathroom out of the rehearsal and hit it. And that solidified it because before that, Axl, I knew was great, but he was getting... First of all, Steven on double bass drums was the same as Cozy Powell, it was, you think you're listening to Rainbow Rising. It was just insane. And it was loud. And so it was... The kind of songs they were writing were for that and it... you know, Axl screaming and you know it's good, but you really can't hear it. And sometimes a song would slow down through a chorus or something, and it was like, "Oh, there's Axl." But this time you hear Axl great. And Steve, because he stole one of those bass drums away, he totally turned into like this funky bass, I mean, drummer. That wasn't Steven before. Steven was just, you know, those feet were moving. So everything slowed down. You know, they had Don't Cry, which Slash was not involved in, but of course, that Slash does guitar solo. But that was like, you know, original. They had Think About You, which I didn't hear before. I already knew about Anything Goes. That's what sucked me in in the first place to, and Slash, to even be interested in Slash trying to get together with Axl. And Slash actually met Izzy while he was working right here where Genghis Cohen is now, it's on Melrose and Fairfax. There was a music store called Hollywood Music Store. And Izzy came in there because there was this drawing that Slash had made for me for my birthday of Aerosmith. And it was a really cool cartoon. It's actually in the last page of Reckless Road. It actually started out as just a Steven and Joe drawing. And a year later, he took it back and added the rest of the band, which is kind of tricky to do if that wasn't his intention, which it wasn't. But anyways, I keep changing stories...

B: It's all good.

MC: Because there's just so much information. [?] because Izzy walked in there looking for, he heard the guy that made that drawing works there and he was looking for a copy of it. So that was Slash's first brush with Izzy. And even though they didn't hang out or jam together or anything, you know, they can see each other were cool. And they, you know, they, there was some kind of image going around just looking at each other. And I don't know 100% but it's very possible that Izzy might have said, "Come check out my band, I'm in Rose," or something like that. It could have maybe even handed him a demo tape. I don't know. Somehow we did get a hold of that demo tape and I remember listening to it and I don't know how we got a hold of it but I'm speculating that it was at that meeting. You know it's like, "Here's my tape, check out my band," or you know whatever. Now I'm going to jump stories for a second because now that we brought up that music store, that's where we're going to tie in a Kiss story. So the owner of that music store, his name was Hiro. He was a Japanese guy. And obviously when there's no one in the store and you're working in a music store, you're going to plug a guitar into an amp and start doodling around. Well, so it didn't take Hiro long to see that Slash knew what he was doing. And even though nobody knew that Ace Frehley had quit Kiss, he was aware of it because he was in the industry and he knew that Kiss was actively looking for a guitar player. So he recommended Slash for the job. And but also there was some red flags there because Slash was only 17 at the time. It was in 1982 and Slash was actually also working at Business Card Clock for six dollars an hour. And we knew that Paul Stanley was going to call like at two in the afternoon or something like that. So I was there with him when that call came in. And I couldn't hear what Paul Stanley was saying, but I heard basically the answers that Slash was giving. It was like, "Yeah, I could pull that off," "Yeah, I could do that," "I think so," "Yep, I could," "Yeah, I could." So afterwards I asked him, "What did he ask you?" "Oh, would you be able to tour?" "Could you record?" "Is your parents cool with it?" You know, that kind of stuff. And I think he got spooked because, you know, he didn't want to take on the liability of a 17 year old. But so we never heard back from him, but let's just say Slash was 18 at the time, I'm 100% sure he would have scheduled Slash to you know learn three songs and come play with the band or whatever to see how it goes, you know. If slash walks in the way he looks and Slash had a good image even back in '82 and plug in an amp and let Slash rip away and doodle around I'm very confident that Slash would have probably been picked for the job. And so that's kind of a story that gets left behind. And here's the joke-

B: It would have been no Guns N' Roses, right?

MC: In my opinion, Guns N' Roses would have happened. Even though when Tracii and Rob left, they probably would have found another guitar player and maybe even got Steven, who knows. But, and there's a lot, you know, between Izzy and Axl and Duff, there's a lot of good songwriting talent, you know, capability there. But you don't have Paradise City, you don't have Rocket Queen, you don't have Jungle, you don't have Sweet Child. You're missing a lot. And also, Izzy would start a lot of songs and Slash would funk them up a little bit and add to them and was influenced by them. So he would, we'll call it "decorated." [cuts out]

MC: Paul Stanley definitely know this and when he told you about, and you had a phone interview, then he might remember, but he doesn't realize that it was Slash nobody has ever went back and said, "Hey, you know, that kid you were talking to," because at that time it was Saul Hudson. It wasn't Slash, Slash didn't change his name until '84. So I don't know if he's ever.... How could Paul Stanley possibly remember that story? But if somebody kind of walked him through it, he might say, "Oh yeah, I do remember that phone call." "Well, that was Slash. That was Slash," "Wow! Cause if I'd known that was Slash, I think we could have worked this out by getting his parents to sign off on this and get the lawyers to drop the papers." Cause obviously, there is rock stars that are kids, look at Michael Jackson, look at all those other kids that are able to function in the touring world and not worry about the liability. But so anyways, I thought that story never got added because there were nowhere to put it. So there's a lot of things like that that are important that I think could have changed... That's like a sliding door in rock and roll history.

B: How do you retain all this information? Because I am lucky. I know what I had yesterday. I know what I had this morning for breakfast. I'm lucky I do. But obviously you have so much of a document and now in the book, but you have the photographs that you had to wear with all to take early on. But do you just have that kind of steel trap memory to like I?

MC: I do have that memory for certain things, but not for what I need them for. Like in school, I was never good. No matter what, how I studied, I'd be very lucky to come home with that C. Or that C minus. So it was, you know... But I'm also a little OCD. So the OCD is what drives you to do things, certain things thoroughly. And leave no stone unturned. You know, like I bet you a good hit man is probably OCD because they'll [?] every week and see where you eat, see where you go to the gyms. They'll find the best time to get you. But you map things out. So when I first met Slash, I knew he was a little different than most people, [?] moccasins, he dressed differently, you know, he had a real talent in art in school, with his like art projects. When it was, you know, I'd write something with a bunch of stick figures and he would draw this really cool animated, you know, jungle of dinosaurs and snakes crawling through trees and the dinosaur would have a dimple. This is not traced out of a book. This is just him free handing it and he'd sketch it out like a street artist. You know, he'd just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There it was. So you knew he had some talent, but this was in 1976. So nobody was, we weren't, even though he came from a music background, his parents, we weren't listening to music. We were just, you know, hoodlums riding around on our bike doing things and, you know, stealing shit and whatever, knocking trash cans over. You know, we lost touch for a year because he got kicked out of the John Burroughs junior high school and was put at Bancroft, which even though it might only be a mile away, it's just, you know, you lose touch with people.

B: You're a kid, a mile away is 10,000 miles away.

MC: If we were in the cell phone days, you know, or that we would have never lost touch, but we lost touch. And a year later, we bumped into each other again. And I was wearing an Aerosmith shirt, he was wearing a Zeppelin shirt. So here we are, we both got into music on our own. And I said, "Oh, hey, what's up?" And he says, "Oh, I play guitar, I'm in this band, Tidus Sloan." Instinctively, I knew, oh, I missed, we were riding bikes. And we were riding bikes, he was doing things that you'd see in X Games today, but they weren't really doing in 1978. He was a little quicker, a little stronger, and he did more outrageous. And so when he'd go off and jump at a race, flashes would go off. When other people go off a jump, nothing would happen. He was bringing the attention. But okay, so let's get back to this, when he told me he was you know playing guitar and in a band I instinctively knew that it was just that it was gonna be something special. I went with him that day, my mom literally came to pick me up and I sent her away and I went with him. He was he was actually living not that far, he was living on Wilshire and Crescent Heights at the time. And just coincidentally, the drummer that was in his band, Adam Greenberg, I knew from John Burroughs, junior high school, who, you know, he hooked up with him a few years later. But so I already knew him and the bass player, Ronnie Schneider, I didn't know. But I sat there and he plugged into this a BC rich mockingbird into his Sun amp. And they were playing like Heaven and Hell, you know, some cover songs, Zeppelin, Aerosmith. They had a couple originals. But it was just insane that the sound that he was getting, because I was playing guitar too. And when I said, "Here, let me play that guitar. That sounds really good." You know, in between this, you know, whatever after rehearsal, I plug in, I play. It doesn't sound that good to me, but when he was playing, he was getting that guitar with controlled feedback. You know, it's the way you play it. And it's, you know, years later, I saw that again in him when he played at the Kibitz room one night and he dropped in here on, they used to have Tuesday night jams. He didn't bring any equipment and there was some crappy green Strat on the stage that, you know, that was probably a $200 strat that was bought a year before that. And it plugged into who knows what amp and he picked it up, fuddled a little bit with the, you know, with the tones and they were jamming. And you know, all of a sudden you hear Slash. Now Slash is not known for playing that of a Strat. What does he play? Dust N' Bones with a Strat, which is cool. But, you know, you think of Slash, you think of a Les Paul and that sound he gets, but he was getting that sound out of this out of the strat. So it's really it's the guitar, and sure, the Les Paul helps and the amp certainly helps, but he was getting it without it. You know, he was doing it. So back to that rehearsal, they would play a blues song or something else. And I was getting goosebumps, you know. And so right away, I was sucked in. I used to document him racing bikes, taking pictures, and that stuff. So I started taping those rehearsals and taping those anytime they played a party. And I wasn't taking pictures yet because that ties back into Jack Lew. We were talking about Jack Lue earlier and he's the one that influenced me to take photos. Jack Lue was a friend of mine since 1979. And we'd go to concerts and he would always take the best photos. And one concert, it was Alan Holdsworth playing the role[?] in April of '82. And Jack couldn't, and we knew that Eddie Van Halen was going to be there. We got word through the grapevine and might play a song with him for the encore. So Jack wanted to shoot it, but couldn't because he had a, his day job had a night job for him that day. So, or he had to leave town. I forgot what it was, but he handed me his camera, put a load of film, a roll of film, set it to the settings that he thought would work for that show, and just told me, "Shoot a roll off, see what happens." And I shot a roll off and I got one money shot. The rest were okay, but they were a little fuzzy or whatever. And right away that one shot was enough of Eddie Van Halen to influence me to steal my sister's Canon 81 that was just sitting in her closet that my mom probably bought her for a photography class she took in high school. And so I ready. I really knew, I know which was speed film, 400 speed film, do this, you know, set the, open the lens. So I wasn't a photographer, but I learned what Jack showed me for that gig and I used that. And it was [?], a lot of, well, the first shot I, the first time I shot Slash was at, well, Slash playing guitar anyways, was at Fairfax High School. And that was June, you're gonna say I have a photographic memory, but I know this because I have prints from those shows. And so I know the date, where it was at and the date. So I've done that so many times that they're in my hard drive now. So that was June 4th, 1983.

B: My grandpa used to do that in the back of every photo he would write the date. I mean, it's such a lost art, but yeah.

MC: Well, I write it on front actually, when people do the fine art photos, they put, they numbered them one to a hundred or whatever, and then they sign it. They number it on the left, they sign it on the right. I number it and then I give you as much possible information, this is the first time they played Welcome to the Jungle or the debut of Paradise City. If there's something that happened to that gig, I like to write that because it makes it a little bit more special. But anyways, so that's why all these dates are in my head. I shot that show, it was a day show. It was daytime at lunch break at school, Fairfax High School. And you don't need the camera. Every picture came out because you're not fighting lighting, you're not fighting... If the red lights are on, it's not gonna work. You gotta wait for the yellow lights. There was just daylight. So I blew off that roll of film in one song. And every one of those pictures came out. And that was it. I never looked back. I shot everything. You know, after that, I brought my camera to all the shows with Jack and we shot together. But of course I shot what Slash was doing. So I shot some rehearsals. I shot all those gigs. So I kind of followed Slash. I knew the importance of it. I knew 100% sure he was gonna make his living playing the guitar. And I knew it was exciting to me, and that's why I taped it, but I also knew I was documenting it. And it wasn't just Slash, it was Slash until I met the rest of them. And then I saw each brought something to the table. Wasn't all Slash was the monster and the rest of them are just here for the ride. It was equal amount of energy coming. First time I shot that Appetite for Destruction lineup on June 6th at the Troubadour, if you're a photographer and you're looking at things, sometimes you don't pull the trigger if you don't like what you see. I pointed the camera at Izzy, I'm shooting. I pointed to Steven, I'm shooting. I pointed at Duff, I'm shooting. I obviously shut Slash, always looks good. Axl's flying around stage, I'm shooting him. I just, I shot four rolls of film and they only had like a 30 minute, 35 minute set. And I didn't even have a rewinder yet. I had it, every time I shot it, I had to flick it with my finger to, you know, reset. Everything looked good, you know? So you had all... And then when I saw how they were writing songs, the first song they wrote together was Welcome to the Jungle. And that was just... The way you hear it on the record is the... Right down to guitar solo is the way I heard it the first time they played it. You know, same guitar solo, same everything. So it was arranged, produced, you know? It was like, "Wow! That's like... That's like a Led Zeppelin. That's, you know, these guys they can't do wrong." That was just one song. And they already had Don't Cry and a few others. So you knew that it was working. And then two months later, Rocket Queen was debuted at the Troubadour. When was that? That was September 20. And that song, just like you hear it on the record, was the same way it was played that night, right down to every guitar solo that's in it. So Slash would hear that melody. Axl's voice would influence it. It would come out and he ripped it out out of just winging it and it worked. And so he remembered it and it just stuck the next time they played it. The next time they played it. Time to record, he's going to play it. Cause it's part of the song. So, you know, then came Paradise City a couple of months later, then, then all of a sudden, you know, not My Michelle, Nightrain came in December, two weeks later than My Michelle, there was no throwaways. Every song they did. It's like you hear it on the record and it didn't need any arranging. At that point I knew that this is absolutely going to work, not just Slash, but all of them as a team effort. And as long as they don't die, or some of them die, or one of them dies, or get thrown in jail, or whatever, or they could break up too, because even though they were creating good music, there was, there's issues sometimes, and there was a lot of stress that, you know, four of them were living in that studio that's not a live-in studio really. And Duff was living with his girlfriend, but you know, sometimes they didn't all live there if they hooked up with somebody or they had a girlfriend for a short time. But still they're getting chased by the police that, you know, some girl turned them in for this or that. And so it gives them material, then they write Out Ta Get Me. So they're writing about what's going on. I mean, Izzy hooked up with Rod Stewart's girlfriend. And I wasn't even hanging out with Izzy yet at the time, although I sort of was, because he was here at Canter's writing with Tracii. But she dropped him off at where they were hanging out at that studio and he sat down, you know, after they hooked up, he sat down on the cement curb there and wrote the lyrics to Think About You. So they're writing about what's going on, you know, at that time. And so the dynamic of that, and there was so much craziness going on... [cuts out] Not only do you have all that talent-

B: I think the Facebook and Instagram bots are getting to you again.

MC: -just be of their lives. It's not like they're made up. [?]

B: You're slowing down a little bit, Marc. I don't want to cause you're off on a great roll. You're slowing down a little bit. There we go. You're back. Well, you know, if I can ask, cause I don't want to keep you here forever and maybe you'll buffer back to a normal speed. Uh, it was.... You're getting there. You're still in witness protection voice a little bit. Alright. Okay, now you're good. Now I can see your hands. All good. Well, I'm... Yeah, buddy.

MC: So the material was real. It's not like they have to make shit up. Or they saw a TV show or a movie, and they input to write this or write that. They were writing their own life. It was a biography of what was going on. So it worked. They had the right sound. Axl's got five octaves of whatever you want to call it, registers of voice registers. You know, they looked good, they sound good, they're good, they have everything going for them. So the thing was my job was to document it, but also at the same time, make it a little easier for them to get to the next gig, help them put an ad in [?] magazine to get a bigger crowd there, help them buy some flyers, help pay for maybe a demo tape, a pack of guitar strings. I actually bought Splash's wah-wah pedal. He had a wah-wah pedal in the early 80s but it broke or disappeared. But [?] before it was his birthday, right before he wrote Mr. Brownstone. So his birthday was in July. And Brownstone showed up a month later. And also Sweet Child showed up then too. I don't know if I want to take credit for that, but I did buy, I did buy-

B: But I think it's important. It's something you said early on, are these ancillary characters like, yeah, you maybe want to hear from the rock star, the people that wrote the song. No, it's the people that you interviewed for Reckless Road and for 50 First Gigs, the people that like yourself that were there. And if you're not asking them to recall 30 years of their life, it's one year. So I'm curious because I believe you interviewed Steve Darrow on one of your episodes, right?

MC: Yes.

B: I'm wondering if you can add to because he wasn't sure. He doesn't want to take credit to it for it that he named Axl Axl when they were trying to come up with another name. Do you know anything about that story when they were trying to come up with possibly naming the band after Hollywood Rose Axl and he's like, why don't you just yourself Axl? Any, do you know anything, uh, anything more about that?

MC: From what I remember and what I, even what I don't know, but I be sure that, the word AXL was [?] Axl's band. When Chris Weber joined up with Izzy and Axl, the band was called AXL. But here's the weird thing. Axl was still going by Bill Bailey. So I don't know if he was actually going by the name Axl. So it might have been something he was thinking of changing his name to. That's why they named the band AXL. But so anyways, it ended up being Rose and then turned into Hollywood Rose. And Steve Darrow was not in Rose or Hollywood Rose. Steve Darrow became in the New Hollywood Rose and [?]. So when I saw Hollywood Rose at Gazzari's, they played a three song set for Battle of the Bands, Slash and Steven were with me. And Steve Darrow was not the bass player. It was this guy that I went to Beverly Hills High School with, what's his name, Troxx, something Troxx, I forgot, Andre Troxx. But that band fell apart right then after that night. And when they put, when Slash even joined the band, Chris Weber was out, Steve Darrow came in. So the first time Steve Darrow played with Hollywood Rose, the name was already Hollywood Rose. And although Axl was still going sometimes by Bill, but when I met Axl, I met him as Axl. And I met him in May of '84, the same time that Steve Darrow met him. So I don't know if Steve, I don't know.... Oh, I hope that didn't just go. I got a call right now. I got rid of it. When Darrow was joining Hollywood Rose at that time, Axl had been saying, "Maybe we should change the name to AXL, cause I think I want to go with Axl. That's what I'm going to call myself." That could have happened because like I said, some people called them because I remember when we went to [?] I would love to [?]

B: Can you repeat that again, Marc? Cause you're skipping. Can you just repeat that, you know, that part again, cause you're skipping. We won't keep you. It's the same bots that Facebook [?]. They're attacking you. Go ahead, I'm sorry.

MC: No, that's okay. So the first time I knew of Hollywood Rose, we had that demo tape and we listened to it and Slash said, "I would love to get Bill and Izzy in my band or join their band." And so we went to see them. When I went to see them, I thought that was Bill. After the show or the next day I met him and he introduced himself as Axl. So I never once in my life called him Bill. But I knew of him as Bill, but when I met him, he was instantly Axl, so I always called him Axl. So he changed his name right about then. So it's possible Steve Darrow might have helped him, "Hey dude, that's cool. You should go with Axl." He might have changed... Axl might have been on the fence about it and then Steve Darrow could have easily talked him into changing his name to Axl. That sounds right.

B: This is what's good about doing sleuthing, internet sleuthing or documentaries. You get to really break it down and discover and you get the fact and the timeline and everything is great. So has there been a favorite episode of yours that you've done so far of the 50 First Gigs, are they going to be 50 episodes? I guess, how does it, how are you going about releasing it?

MC: Well, okay. So that's a good question. I think there's, I could be off by one or two, but I think there's 12 or 14 episodes for the first season and there's also bonus episodes. And bonus episodes are episodes that Jason doesn't think are strong enough to make into an episode, but they're important enough to keep it in there. So they become thrown in bonus episodes. There might be four or five bonus episodes in first season. First season takes you from basically how it all began, any of them playing in Los Angeles to the day they end up back at Canter's Deli after they came back from Hell Tour. So the Appetite for Destruction lineup plays one gig at the Troubadour, goes up north, their car breaks down. So that becomes Hell Tour. And then they play one gig in Seattle. So now they've got two gigs in their pocket and they come back to Canter's to take a publicity shot at this famous booth now, because you can see, what makes that shot so good is if you look at them, they all know in their eye that they got it. And this is it. This is the lineup that's gonna work because they suffered together. They already knew they were good musicians, but they're now blood brothers because they lived through this hell of getting to Seattle and what it took to get there. So the look on their face is like, "Yeah, we got it, we're here, we're going to take this picture to get, you know, on a flyer for our next gig," which is at the Stardust Ballroom at the end of that month. And you know, that was basically it. So that's the first season. Now, the second season, all that's gonna happen in the second season, or the third, or the fourth, and even the fifth, is we're gonna continue to the next event, which is the next gig, which that gig at the Stardust Ballroom. So we're gonna talk about that gig. We're gonna talk about what was going on around that gig. Vicky Hamilton booked them for that gig, even though she wasn't managing them. So they had a deal with Vicky as a booker. So you're going to get tidbits of all these people that were involved in that. And we might even interview some of the members from the bands that they played with, they played with The Unforgiven that night, and they were the headliners. So what maybe do they remember their opener? And then do they realize that that band became famous? Or that kind of stuff. So it's sometimes interesting because there could be stories that are left on the.... that never got told that these people that played gigs with them might remember. So it's just cool. I know it sounds like you're fishing for something, but you'd be surprised what you can come up with. And if nothing else, you're going to get extra photos that didn't make it into Reckless Road and you're going to get a little video footage intertwined in there. And you're just going to get people [?]. What did they do that night? They debuted Mama Kin. So even though it's not their song, it is the first time they debuted it. So, you know, and then just what was going on at that time in their lives. And you're gonna get that, then you're gonna go to the next gig. And you know, the next gig was at Madam Wong's East and they played in front of four people on July 4th. Nobody was there, it was just their girlfriends. So, you know, you're gonna get that. So you were just gonna move it, then they recorded their demo tape, you're gonna get how that was made. So the episodes will be determined, but all we're doing is following the history line and what may show up. And when we hit season two, it's because it might be 12 or 14 episodes and then that's it. That's season two. Where it ends, I don't know. And then we'll hit season three. But we speculate that it'll be about five seasons if we get all the way through from the start, you know, the genesis of this to when it didn't matter anymore because, you know, they took off with The Cult. You know, they went on tour and what, you know, in the last episode, you're going to find out that okay, so they toured what they got put on the tour at the Cult. Nobody really knew who they were. You know, they came to see the Cult and there was this band Guns N' Roses. Who are they? Well, after in each city that they played in, you're going to hear Tom Zutaut talk about records were sold the next day. And those records, you know, those local record stores. So there was this little underground buzz going on. And every time they'd play a city records would be sold in that city and eventually without any airplay or other than like KNAC and no MTV support, they sold 200,000 copies. And then when MTV started playing them, and that was a whole other story, that could be a whole episode in itself. And we had, you know, Geffen Records had to bend their arm backwards to play the song and on a Sunday night at two in the morning LA time, five in the morning New York time, because we don't want to get help from sponsors that we played these guys that have this great band cover and  there's bad reputations that they just didn't want to deal with that. But they did it as a favor. And of course the switchboards blew up. Hey, who's that? Play that song again. And then they were thrown into top 10 rotation like within two or three days from that. And the rest is history. You know, they were selling 200,000 records a week at some point after that because of MTV.

B: That's why [?] your story because it wasn't an overnight thing with the exploded and how long it took it for it to happen and that you were just, if you have all the little details, it's not just like, Hey, I was here for the first, you know, incarnation of it, the fact that again, you were there for moments that Slash doesn't remember or, you know, Axl may not remember, that you were there in the front lines to get these stories from the people that you may not hear from all the time, like Steve Weber, like a Vicky Hamilton. So that's that's great. And fans do love it. They really do, especially, you know, I have to say it's from a band that doesn't give us a lot. You know, we don't have we don't know a lot from their history. So we're forced to watch, you know, Reelz documentaries, things that are sensationalistic. So when we do get things from you that are, you know, people that were there, it's gold to us. We know it's real. We know it's valid and it's more than we ever thought before.

MC: You know, I've been involved in some of those sensationalized things where, you know, they come to make a little six minute documentary on how my, how I documented Guns N' Roses and they film it so well and they do such a good job on it and then somebody, you know, in the main office gets ahold of it and says, "Hey, let's go to town with this and we're going to say, 'We found the guy that could get Guns N' Roses back together'." And they label it, you know, I don't know if you remember this, but it was like six, seven years ago. And the funny thing is-

B: I was gonna ask you about that.

MC: Yeah. Took one blurb that was a hundred percent authentic, but they nicked the whole video after that. And we went back to the studio where they first rehearsed it and it was like two o'clock in the morning. My voice was shot cause they'd interviewed me since eight in the morning. Oh, and we went to different places. They were so thorough. We went to the Troubadour, we went to Tower Video, and I said the same things, while I was driving, they videotaped me in the mirror, like literally, so they did all these cool effects, and they asked me the same questions eight million times, but just to get different backgrounds with it. So anyways, my voice was shot, I was pissed off, it was like two in the morning, and he says, "What would it take to get these guys back together?" And I was like, "What would it take? You know, get rid of the bullshit, put them there, no management, put those five guys in that room, and that's what it would take." You know, it was like, you know, that was like pure emotion. And then what do they do? They take it and they name it as if I'm the guy that could get them back together. It had nothing to do with getting them back together. It was just, they asked me that question and it was a fair question. And I gave them the right answer. And it's true what I gave them at that time anyways. And, you know, and soon after the joke of it was, Slash had already reunited with Axl and I wasn't even aware of it. And that's the joke of it. That's what made it funny. They were already back together before we were filming that even. And I didn't even know it. And I mean, soon the world found out about it, you know, a couple of months after that. But that's what made it so funny. Cause everyone said, "Hey, you did a good job. You got them back together." No, I didn't get them back together.

B: Yeah, I was wondering, I was just actually perusing that documentary before and going to ask you how you feel about it now. You know, Guns N' Roses, they finished their last tour date after six successful years of touring. And you know, you weren't like Andrew Dice Clay or Fred Durst that claimed to take into credit for getting them back together. But still, just to get your opinion, again, somebody who was there from the infancy to now to see where they are. They're all alive. They all live, they'll make it.

MC: Well, no. The joke of it is that I was not to get them back together. That documentary was just a little documentary on how I decided to do what I did. But the joke of it was for 12 years, I did try to get them back together publicly in an intervention on chat boards. And in any interview I did, I was talking to Axl. They would ask me a question and I answered it as if I was looking in Axl's eyes. And most of it was like, "They just need like a family therapist to hear their things because," I know their gripes, each one of their gripes, and I knew that there was no one shot each other's mother, you know, these were things that could easily be fixed by the right, you know, just getting together. And I was just in it, just every single day on it, getting this information out, hoping that Axl would look at it. And it turns out they weren't letting him look at it. And so I was kind of wasting my time, but it doesn't matter. I died with my boots on. I did it for the right reasons. And at least I was also helping a lot of fans that were fighting, blaming things, "It was Slash's fault," "It was Axl's fault." I said, "It's no fault. There's no bad guy here. They just disagreed on some things."

B: I thank you for that. The fans thank you for that because we weren't getting much, even as somebody. Yeah. I was happy with Axl's version. I never got to see Slash and Axl on stage together, unlike you, but I didn't see for the first time until the reunion. So I thought it was never going to happen. So for someone like you or Doug Goldstein, taking time to talk to fans, I think it's important. We understand that there's, you know, you're not with the band now and there's some sort of a stiff arm with some with people in the past with the current incarnation of it, but I think what you do to take time to talk to the fans, through a band, the people about the band that you love, the friends that you love. We don't take that for granted. That's why people are excited to hear from you again today.

MC: You know what? Deep inside, Axl feels that way too. If you listen to Get in the Ring, there's some lyrics about he's talking about Bob Guccione Jr., whatever, ripping off the kids to learn about that paid their hard earned money to learn about the bands they want to know about. Just take that line about. And so there was actually a time when Doug Goldstein called me, I don't know, maybe '88, '89, somewhere like that, from while they were on the road. And he said, "Axl wants to hire you to look through..." Yeah, it was right around the time of that, "to look through all the magazines and let management know, or let somebody know, what's bullshit." You know, sometimes you do an interview and they twist the words and they sensationalize it and they... you know, if you do a video interview, it is what it is, but if you do an audio interview and they print it, there's always little, somebody gets in there and screws it up. But so Axl didn't like that shit. When you say something and then you read it two weeks later and it's not exactly what you said. And not only that, they've twisted it to make it look like you said something else.

B: And a [?], sure.

MC: So anyway, they did that with me. They twisted my words to make it look like I'm there trying to get the band back together, which I was, but that wasn't why we made that video. But anyways, long story short, Doug says, "I don't know how you're gonna know what's right or wrong because you weren't there when the interviews were being done," but he said, Axl said, "You would know." Because Axl was betting on that I would know whether they said that or they didn't say that, even though I wasn't there. Because Axl knew that I knew them better than they knew themselves. So anyways, I said to Doug, "Look, I mean, no one's going to hire me to do that. I'll look at, I'm collecting all those magazines anyways. I'll look through them. If I see something that I don't like, I'll let you know, but you don't have to pay me for it. It's not, you know, I'll help you out." But anyways, it went away. I didn't really have to do that. You know, at some point Axl changed his mind or whatever. But what I'm getting at is that Axl knew when I was doing this, he knew exactly what. You know, Slash was used to me with the camera always, so he didn't pay much attention. But Axl understood that I was documenting for the right reasons. And they had a gig at the Central once. You might even see some of the video on YouTube. And the sound man told me I couldn't videotape. And I went up to Axl and I said, "Hey, the sound man is not letting me videotape." And he said, "Oh yeah, then we won't play." So he knew what I was doing. He knew that [?] important to document this. And there was a couple of disagreements that they had, bands fight of course, and I didn't get that on video because I just wasn't, I was only really documenting the gigs. I wasn't looking for backstage, what was going on backstage. I might have a little footage from backstage falling around, but for the most part, I [?] videotaped any of their fights. Axl once said, he almost wished I had, just so they had it documented that they had a fight and worked it out, you know, whatever. But so, you know, it's just that the people running things now, they just have everything on lockdown. They don't do interviews and, you know, they have their own agenda behind that and that's their business. They could do what they want. You can't change history. I'm not documenting what they're doing now. I'm happy what they're doing now. And it's being documented by, you know, thousands of people with their iPhones in the crowd. You know, basically videotaping or doing whatever they're doing. But there's no secrets to what's going on now. They're on tour and they're playing. That's it. But nobody knows what was going on or how this... A lot of people want to know that the history is very important. How did my favorite band that gets me through my day sometimes or when I'm having a bad day, how did they write this song? Why did they... What influenced them to do... "Oh, was that the girl that did..." It's important to get that stuff up. Now, I'm not obsessed with getting this stuff out. I was obsessed in capturing it to make sure I caught it. It was not my job to get it out, it was my job to capture it. I'm not gonna let it go to waste. But if nothing else, I like it. Let's say the whole world didn't like Guns N' Roses, that's great, I got it. But it turned out the world did like Guns N' Roses. [?] I compared them to Led Zeppelin, which by the way is not my favorite band, but I understand that Led Zeppelin is probably the best band. And I know for the reasons why, you know, what music they created and there was no throw away music. And so anyways, as far as I was concerned, I was documenting Led Zeppelin, just in Guns N' Roses. So anyways, I have it. And yes, my goal was to get it out with Reckless Road. We didn't have the right, you know, we went independent publisher instead of a real publisher. And we failed in getting the message out because, you know, we sold maybe 50,000 copies after 12 years. And we should have sold a million copies or more because any fan that's going to pay $375 to go see them now would pay $25 for a book, a treasure trove of the first 50 gigs. So it just didn't, the word didn't get spread out right. But we do have the information and COVID hit and which made this project happen. So that's why we're doing this. So if you go to thefirst50gigs.com, you could get information, sign up, and it's a podcast.

B: And you guys have... as you're slowing down again, I'll fill in the gap. You guys have an Instagram, which is back up now. You have a Facebook and a Twitter.

MC: [?] I think there's a $25 things and then those get, yeah, they get displayed and you get a few, like maybe some shirt, not original memorabilia, but maybe reproduce, but I don't know. Jason's taking care of that stuff. And he's in charge of sending... or a free book, you might get a signed book. But the 50 [?] is a great one because that gets you basically the podcast with all the footage, the extras. And so, you know, it's a cool little, you know, we need that fee not because we want to get rich on that fee. We need that fee because these things have like 20 people working behind them, putting them together, editing them. And these people aren't necessarily... it's not in their blood. To me, I'll do anything for free to get it out there. These people are professionals and they need to get paid for their time to get this information out there. So one's making money off this, but it's kind of like a GoFundMe thing. It keeps a little money in flowing, which keeps us able to hire the people that are producing it and editing it and doing all that stuff. So it's a GoFundMe basically.

B: And if you're watching on Zoom, I just realized today that Canter's was featured in Mad Men. I watched that during the, for the first time during the pandemic. So I have a Mad Men Canter's Deli background right now.

MC: You know, they love, they loved filming here because their art department looked and they looked around and they said, "Okay, we're ready to go." They changed like two pictures on the wall. They didn't have to change the furniture. We even had menus back from the 50s or 60s when that time was there. So they didn't even have to reproduce the menu. We literally threw down the menu that was used at that time. So anytime there's a timepiece filmed here, they love it because it fits.

B: The only ask them before we get it here. Let's see. This is another one I got. Yeah. This is from Entourage, right?

MC: Yeah, that's Entourage. Yeah.

B: Canter's. OK. So, I mean, I always want to show it's more than just Guns N' Roses. You have so much there. And once I swear I will make it there one day, I have a turkey sandwich with my name on it. But I think it's such a great thing what you're doing now. And you could tell your heart is in the right place with all of it. And I love the fans love talking with you. I think this is a great new thing. It is really it is Reckless Road come to life. And it's great that it's not just a podcast. It's like what I'm doing now. Would you could listen to it or you can watch it. And I guess the only question is, and I guess it might be a difficult one. Any chance the music sees a lot of day? Cause I know that's a whole other issue. It's one thing if the photographs that you have ownership of, but hear the songs from these first 50 gigs ever.

MC: That's a gray area because a lot of that was recorded before they were signed and I did have permission to document it. There's certain loopholes and certain things. So if we wanted to force it, of course we could. But we're not [?] trouble to fight with copyrights and with people like [?]. But we did ask the band officially if they wanted to get involved in the podcast or allow us to...

B: Sorry, it's slowing down again. So you asked the band officially if they wanted to be a part of it? This will be a fun episode to listen back. Marc is frozen in one. It's okay. I'm going to pretend like this is my radio. This can be fun. [?] I mean, we do have video footage. I don't, I don't, you sound like you're like a Taco Bell drive-thru right now. I don't know, but we can pause it for a moment and see what happens. See if you come back. I hear you. Oh, there we go. Now we're back. So back to the music. Maybe this is a way of the universe saying that we have to cut the interview. You have to get back to get back to work. It's too difficult.

MC: One more thing about the history of Canter's. Just throw this in there. So the history of Canter's goes [?] Marilyn Monroe and all that, but even Elvis was here. But forget about that. The only story I'm gonna tell is a Neal Young's story. So in 1966, or a little before that, Neal Young had met Stephen Stills, but Stephen Stills wasn't famous yet, in Canada somewhere. And they bumped into each other somewhere and they hit it off a little bit so that they could work together one day. But Stephen Stills went back to LA, said, if you ever come to LA, look me up, try to find me, we'll put something together. So Neil Young decides to move here in 1966. He's driving a hearse to carry his equipment in, instead of a van. And he gets to LA and realized that LA is 700 times bigger than he thought. And he's not able to find Stephen Stills. And he's looking for him, but while he's looking for him, he decides he's gonna work by taxing patrons of Canter's Deli to the Sunset Strip back and forth for a dollar a ride. So our unofficial Uber driver and that for a while. And the funny thing is this ties into someone I know, tell me when I was a kid, you know this guy's older than me, he said, when I was a teenager I'd go to Canter's and every time we'd go there to be a hearse and have this joke that what if people are dropping dead and they have to drive them but you know with the hearse. But it took 30 years later or more to figure out it was Neil Young because Neil Young told this story once to Rolling Stone, it all pieced together to me. But then he eventually met Stephen Stills by accident on the street. And, you know, he was on his way. Actually, he had saved enough money from working as our Uber driver. He was going to San Francisco to try to start something. Cause he gave up on Stephen Stills and then he met Stephen Stills and they put together Buffalo Springfield. So I'm just going to tell that story real quick. And I got it out. So there you go.

B: I appreciate that story.

MC: But The Byrds, everybody ate here, the Mamas and Papas, the Doors, I met different members of the Doors over the years and they come in and they eat and they tell me stories about Jim Morrison and that Canter's was always a fun place because the other places would sometimes think they're hippies and they're gonna walk out without paying or cause trouble or smoke pot in the bathroom and that Canter's always treated them fairly. And also we were, what, two places open Ben Frank's and Canter's so you only had two choices. And you know, those days the lines were out the doors in both of those places anyway, so it didn't matter. You had to pick one.

B: I really felt like I missed out on something having only Ben's Deli on Long Island. I wish I had a Canter's Deli. Ben's was okay.

MC: Also real quick, you said that turkey sandwich. Write this down. You want the Matt Special. Okay. The Matt special, that's turkey sandwich that is grilled on egg bread with coleslaw and Russian dressing and mustard[?] cheese. And it's just a really good sandwich. [?]

B: All right. Hold on that for me until I get there. One of these days, Marc, I will get out there. I mean, we've been traveling a lot, my fiance and I, and I've been having her do the Guns N' Roses road trip. She's a more of a Dave Matthews fan, but I've got her to see Guns N' Roses times in the last year.

MC: Look, I talked to fans from all over the world that come here. And if I can, I give them five minutes to tell them a few stories. But one time I absolutely had nothing to do, at least four people were so dedicated and [?] And I started to map it down on, you know, there's a map in Reckless Road that gives you that, but it, you know, it's kind of animated. So I kind of like was giving them directions. And I said, you know what I said, "Let's go," through them in my car. And I gave them the Reckless Road tour of the city, of the Guns N' Roses spots. And I've only done that once. And these people... and you're not going to believe this if I tell you this, but I have a Guns N' Roses pinball machine that they gave me in 1994, I even took them to my house and let them play the machine. But I had nothing going on and I thought, you know, "Let's have some fun with this and make their day." You know, you do a good deed for somebody, you're rewarded by knowing someone else is happy. Sometimes that's how it is. That's your reward. You know that you made someone else a little happier. So you know, that's what it is. This whole project is a labor of love. It's a labor of love. I love getting the information out if I can to get it to people. And I'm proud of that time. And I'm proud of the photographs that I got. And you know, you put them up on your wall and, you know, it's a piece of art. So it really was a special time.

B: Awesome. And I'll end here because Doug Goldstein says hi, because I'm helping him write his book currently. And he said something very similar to you just now, how he will randomly talk to fans. I can Facebook messenger just for a few minutes just to make them happy. He's like, knowing that I made their day makes me feel good. And that's exactly what you just said to me.

MC: Doug Goldstein was the Jedi Knight of the Jedis. Okay. He was the man. He was Yoda. There was nobody even close. If you take the top 10 people that, that can, you know, manage a band. He was the road manager at the time before he was manager, that could do that, fill that job. And you say, well, list them here. And you know, Led Zeppelin's guy, this guy, that guy. You have Doug and then you have six blank spots. And the number seven might be somebody that worked for Led Zeppelin or somebody. Doug was just on top of his game. Not only was he the road manager, if somebody threw something on a stage, like a bottle or something, something wet, Doug would dive there, clean that up, not the roadie on the side of the stage. If Axl jumped in the crowd, it wasn't the roadie that jumped in. It was Doug Goldstein that jumped in and risked everything for.... If there was a girl that ended up on the tour bus and ended up in the next city. I remember I was on the bus with them. Okay. So my wife and I flew out to Giant Stadium to see, which turned out to be the Paradise City video shoot in '88. And of course, why was I going? Because Aerosmith was there and who else? Wow. Deep purple. You can't beat that lineup. So we flew out there, but we didn't have plans on going with them to the next gig. And the next gig was in Washington or somewhere. Was it Washington? I think it was in Washington. And they said, "Hey, you want to come?" And I said, "All right." And so, but we had to rent a car. And they're like, "I got it." "What am I gonna do?" He said, "Give me the keys." He gets on his walkie talkie, says two words to somebody, someone comes running over, he gives them the keys. And now that car has been returned. I'm on the bus. There was only one spot left to sleep. So my wife and I was... yeah, it was my wife. No, it wasn't my wife. It was my girlfriend at the time. We slept in this little bunk that if you've ever seen in a tour bus is not even really made for one person But two people slept in that. Anyways long story short, the next morning, we're in the next city, I think it was Washington... it was in Maryland. It was Maryland. And I see Doug Goldstein pull out 200 bucks, you know pull out a wad of cash and peel off 200 bucks hand to this one says, "This is [?]"

B: Oh, you're cutting out on the good part.

MC: -Doug was done with that girl. He didn't want you know, he had he wanted to make sure she got back to wherever the hell from. And he just like just so so sharp. And he was just right on it. There was no way. And I'm going to say one more funny story. When they played, OK, so Doug was fired on the road and while they were probably with Alice Cooper and they actually fired Colin, the previous manager. And so, you know, on a whim, they got Doug Goldstein, and I didn't know who he was. He didn't know who I was. And so they were playing Perkins Palace four nights and coming back to Los Angeles at the end of '87. And I just for whatever reason, they got me a pass or whatever. But I didn't have the laminated pass. I couldn't go backstage or I don't know where whatever was. They gave me tickets to get in, but they didn't hook me up properly. And so I just made my own pass. I saw what the passes were. And what it was is that the inside, they actually literally took the inside cover of the Appetite for Destruction tape. They cut it with the scissors and laminated it. That was the backstage pass. So I made one for me and my wife. And not only that, they put a picture of you laminated in it with it, right, in the back part of it. So I did it. I come, we walk in, right, gets us in backstage. It was the next day, the first day we got [?]. But the next day I walk in there. You know, we're just walking minding our own business and this guy comes running like a radar and he knew we weren't supposed to be there because he didn't know who the hell we were. And we had passes and he shot right to us, grabbed the pass, turned it over and it was like, he couldn't believe there was a picture of us. And he was like, "Who are you?" Because any pass he would have made, it was like, "How'd you do this?" And I said, "I'm Slash's his friend, blah, blah, blah." "Oh, Marc Canter, I know who you are. How did you do this?" And I told him, he just couldn't believe that I was that resourceful to make my own pass. But after that, I always had a pass. You don't have to worry about backstage passes. But Doug was just right on top of his game. The pen[?] would have fallen apart or gone to jail or all of the above if he wasn't there handling everything that was going wrong. There's a show about that. What's that guy now? What's the name? Uh, God, I know you know the show. It's like on HBO, problem solver guy.

B: Problem Solver Guy?

MC: It will come to me. It doesn't matter.

B: Cause I don't have HBO.

MC: Ray something.

B: Ray Donovan?

MC: Ray Donovan, yeah. Oh, Showtime. So he was, he's the problem solver, right? You got a problem. He solves your problem. Doug Goldstein was solving problems constantly, constantly. Just right on it. Hitting the nail on the head every time.

B: Now me being where you were and Jack Lou was, you know, writing Reckless Road on the cutting room floor, seeing all the stories and I can't wait for it to get out, you know, down the road. I'm on your side of the fence now, but I really appreciate what you've been doing for fans and for a hungry patrons for all these years. It's a pleasure. I didn't expect you to keep you this long. But once you get off on a story, I just want to shut up and let you finish and hear it. So there's just too many stories. So I hope there's more than five seasons. But if it's only five, we'll take it. That's OK.

MC: People are looking, they're looking for, like the backstage dirt. I say, "There is no backstage dirt." The favorite is [?], the goosebumps I got from the music or from this gig or from that gig. That's my favorite story when they pushed, putting a crowd over that wasn't there to see them or, you know, debut in a song that's to me, they're looking for, you know, something backstage with naked girls, that's not my favorite story.

B: When I asked, so I'll ask you your favorite story, but what I mean by that is what made you laugh? Is there one back there that you're like, "Oh, this is such a funny moment that happened." You know, is there anything that was just a fond memory, nothing sensationalistic for somebody that, you know, you look back and like, "Oh, wow, we were young and silly." Or, you know, "This was so funny, I saw Slash naked running." I don't know.

MC: This might not be well, one time. Okay. I'll tell you one time I had them at Canter's, it was Hollywood Rose. So Slash and Axl were here with their girlfriends and, you know, the food's always on the house, but I make it, I don't have anyone wait on them. I just go back there and make the food and bring it out. So I got their order back, I was making the food, I come out. Oh, no, they already had the food, but I left because people call me to tap them. "Hey, this is that blah, blah, blah." You know, when you're in Canter's you're working whether you like it or not. So I come back to the table after being gone for like five minutes. And they decided they were going to have a food fight. And so there was food all over ketchup, mustard, burgers, whatever shakes, whatever they were eating was all over, they threw it all over the place. And I was really pissed because you know, it's a place of business and they were horsing around and they know you don't do that. You know, that gets you thrown out. So I was so pissed off that I took a whipped cream cake that we have in the bakery and I took a nice, put it right in Slash's face, but I don't, I don't think he minded because it's a whipped cream cake.

B: I want to do that up to myself.

MC: So you can't go bad, but still it's a mess. It's in your hair, you know, Slash his hair, try to wash that out. Good luck. I will tell you a funny story. It's not necessarily Guns N' Roses related. But I'm sure if I think about it, there will be lots of good stories to tell. But this is a me and Axl story. So I had a friend when we were young that was way into guns. And we go shooting on Saturday, target shooting, not anything's crazy, but we go to Pasadena, we'd shoot it. So I bought a couple of guns and whatever. So now Axl finds out I have these guns and he wants to go shooting. So we find this place in Palmdale that is this desert and you could bring some targets out there, the clay pigeons or whatever, and have fun, shoot bottles, whatever. So we went one time and we had a good time and like six months later, he bought this Tonka truck toy. When I say Tonka truck, he was driving it. It was like a jeep, a souped up jeep. You know, it was right probably around '88 when they weren't millionaires yet, but they probably had like half a million dollars. So they had enough money to buy a good car. So anyways. He said, we always had to leave at sundown because there's no lights out there. Or when the sun starts to go down. So he says, "I got this truck and look, I got these lights above here and we could stay longer if we want because we could light it up." And certainly a long story short, we're go out there and we're in the middle of nowhere. We're miles away from anything because otherwise you can't, the bullet can come down and hurt somebody. And Axl brings these TVs that are no longer good because they broke for one reason or another. Who knows why they broke, but they broke. And you always want to shoot a TV and see what happens. But anyway, so we're getting to the story now. We get out there, we have our fun, we shoot. Now we want to go home, right? We're done, we want to go home. Guess what? Axl lost his keys to the car, to the truck. So now, and we don't have cell phones, we don't have beepers, we don't have anything, right? So, we might have a beeper that's useless because you can't call anyone. But anyway, we're screwed, the sun's going down, it's getting dark and his keys are not in the car and they're not in his pocket. So now we have to double back everywhere we were walking and it's kind of like sand and dirt and the mountains and we're backtracking a lot and we're walking here, we're walking there, it's getting dark and my wife's, "Great. They shot each other, they're dead," or they go, you know, or, "They got in a shootout with somebody," you know, "What's going on?" You're gonna be home before sundown cuz it gets dark and it's like, you know eight o'clock at night, "What's going on?" You know, she's thinking, "What the hell's going on?" So I see Axl's walking on this ridge like a mountain and he's got these boots on, his, you know, cowboy boots or whatever and I guess his pants were in the boots, not out of the boots, but in the boots maybe, or maybe he was wearing them. But for whatever reason, the keys fell out of his pocket and had fallen in the boot. And he is just realizing that there's like a rock in his boot and it's bothering him. So he's reaching in his boot to like pull out this rock that's bothering him and he comes up with the keys. So it's not necessarily a Guns N' Roses story, but... If you tie in my wife's worrying about us and it's dark, it's way dark, nine o'clock at night now. And you know, if you tie that all in, and if he didn't find those keys, we would have been there just stuck. I mean, we'd have to like start walking, you know, like five or 10 miles to get out of there to find like somebody to help us or, you know. I've never told this story, but it just jumped in my head. Cause my wife tells it all the time, making fun of us.

B: I love it because it's it's worrying. Like if my fiance is a half an hour, an hour late from work, I'm like, "Oh, she's dead on the side of the road." It's just, I get the Jewish mother worry. So I understand. I understand that. And then Axl just, you know, like everybody, where are my glasses? Oh, they're on my head. You know, it's like one of those situations. So he's just like the rest of us. Marc, I've kept you way longer than I thought I would. Thank you for your time. Unless there's anything else you want to say or it's the 50 First Gigs. And again, I think you were cutting out them, but it's on Facebook, it's on Twitter, it's on Instagram. Updates you can sign and subscribe to the newsletter and get any information about the podcast in future seasons. Right. Right.

MC: Yeah, sure. If 5ofirstgigs.com is a place to go for all that information, it will direct you to whatever you need to do. All right.

B: Well, I see I see plates. I hear plates being smacked together. So I don't know if you have to run to the kitchen and take care of. So I do.

MC: I didn't eat yet today. So I'm coming back a day after my son's wedding. I was catching up and my stomach is talking to me right now. So I'm going to go have a bite. Let me say that mazel tov to your son. I saw those photos on Instagram. Congratulations. Go have a nosh. Thank you so much, Marc, for your time.

Finished this. Was hard because Marc Canter was having connection problems and he kept cutting out. And he has a way of jumping from story to story.

Slash can be seen around the 1:44 mark