Current mood:	contemplative
Current music:	My Morning Jacket- It Makes No Difference
Entry tags:	gn'r, memories, rock n' roll

Estranged.
I never knew music could become the soundtrack of your life. Especially the music made by some of the dirtiest, rotten scoundrels in the biz. That would be Guns N' Roses. As we approach the imminent and conclusive chapter of the band's sordid saga; with Axl's hired guns release of 'Chinese Democracy', I can't help but raise my beer to these brothers from another mother.

The first time I heard them, I was an 11 year old gawky kid back in India listening to Phil Collins. I remember my buddy bringing home a tape of his friend's band doing a raucous version of 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door'. They were pretty shit but the rework of the classic Dylan poem had me going 'Holy Fuck!' I found out they did a cover of a cover by this band called GN'R. And that was it for me. I got the then released Use Your Illusions 1 &2. It was the time when the rock genre and its excesses had been dealt a fatal KO thanks to a little upstart band called Nirvana, but it was my beginning.

I kept listening to them over the years. Bands came and went,the music landscape evolved and hip-hop became the new sound of a generation. But GN'R was always there for me. Whether it was my turbulent teens dealing with my teenage issues or early 20's awkwardness, Axl and his merry men always had a song for me. Whether it was the brilliant songwriting of Axl/Izzy or the potent combo of Slash's bluesy killer riffs and Duff's punk aesthetics inspired basswork, I don't know. I never outgrew them or they me. I remember making out to 'Sweet Child O'Mine' in the college foyer with the girl who broke my heart and headbanging to 'Welcome to the Jungle' at Indi-Rock at Rang Bhavan with my bunch of like-minded cohorts, under drug fuelled skies and blasting them in alcohol laced highways.

I would say 'Estranged' sums up my life, at the age of 28. As Axl sang "Old at heart but I'm only 28, I'm much too young to let love break my heart.." The heavier songs off UYI like 'Coma', 'Locomotive' and 'Civil War' all had a lyrical and musical quality that makes the many bands before and after them pale in comparison. A troubled genius wrote those psychopathic and inspired songs and a happy go lucky backing band took them frantically where he alone couldn't.

As I came to the Americas, I felt isolation and loneliness. I was a scared kid who had ventured out from his safe, cosy nest back in India. That's when Axl warned me in his rebel yell " YOU'RE IN THE JUNGLE BABY!" I recall baffling people by disclosing that I was a huge GN'R fan. They turned up their noses, thought I had no taste, but I didn't care. I knew better.

A lot of people who know me associate that band with me. I think it was the combination of madness,intelligence, a pure joy of living and a penchant for danger that endeared me to their music. The musical DNA inside me will read GUNS-N-ROSES. For the casual fan who knows them just by the overplayed 'Patience', 'SCOM' and 'WTTJ', this was expected. Nobody thinks of them as an intelligent band who wrote some of the most vile, complicated and explosive music ever recorded. You can literally smell danger when you put on a GN'R record and listen attentively. Everytime I need to just get away to maybe think by myself or fix my mood, get high or get out of a funk there's mostly just one band that can do that.

I can see why people go see the Stones way past their expiry date, pun unintended. Or Dylan.Or the Beatles. If the band hadn't imploded, they could have been the sum of all the greatest bands. I'm sort of glad, they went out the way they did, OD'ing on creativity and human fallacies. And now that they're all gone on to their separate ways, what remains is the music. I don't mind Axl stealing the band name as long as he's still around,creating new masterpieces and ready for a second coming. I smile indulgently as one would at a favorite relative when I see Slash valiantly struggling to keep together new bands and finding the new Axl.

I'll still have imprinted in my mind the image of Slash driving his Mustang off a cliff and flinging his Les Paul into the air and casually smoking while making his guitar cry in the 'Don't Cry' video. Or Axl rocking his kilt and slithering his snake dance in 'Live and Let Die'. And the epic 'Estranged' and 'November Rain' videos where the storylines intertwine and Ax's paranoia and psychoses are clearly revealed. I always wear a bandanna to the gym and pay tribute to a bottle of Jack Daniels when I can. And of course, when I am told to take it slow, I always have an abundance of Patience.

I may be estranged from some of the people I once knew and there are a few who could've be mine and have become someone else's sweet child. I'm sure I'll find my Rocket Queen and she won't leave me in a coma. Now that election fever is high, the words to Civil War just seem so unbelievably eerie. Probably the best anti-war song ever written. I know I'll be welcome to any jungle and I know it'll be up to me to turn it into my Paradise City. Coz nice boys don't rock n' roll, I'm not a nice boy and I never was. The things your music inspired me to learn are private. I don't think I could have learnt them any other way.

Chinese Democracy finally has a release date. November '08. Life has come full circle again. I'll raise my glass of Dr. Pepper to that. You made life worth listening to and worth loving. Thank you for giving me my appetite for life through your music.