ALBUMS THE SECRETS OF GN'R'S OVERLOOKED
THERE WAS A piece of tape on the rehearsal studio floor where, in the past, Izzy Stradlin’s amp would have been. “And on the piece of tape,” Gilby Clarke says now, “and I’ll never forget this, it said, ‘Do you have what it takes to fill this spot?’”
Clarke had what it took. He’d walked in that fall 1991 day with a Les Paul and Marshall half-stack to audition for Guns N’ Roses’ rhythm guitar spot, which Stradlin vacated following a tour leg supporting the Hollywood hard-rockers’ Use Your Illusion albums. Clarke’s three-year tenure with the band would include GN'R’s most legendary tour and two un-legendary Guns N’ Roses albums, The Spaghetti Incident? and Live Era ‘87 - ‘93.
For such a huge band, these albums, particularly the latter, are close to being forgotten. Lost in the shuffle amid savagely brilliant debut Appetite for Destruction, controversial GN’R Lies, sprawling Use Your Illusion and mythologized/maximalist Chinese Democracy.
Still, Era is an underrated concert album that remains the band’s only official classic-era live disc. It displays why GN’R was powerful enough to (partially) reunite in 2016 and play stadiums and arenas across the world — something they’re still doing, more than 25 years after their heyday. Punk-covers effort Spaghetti contains some feisty gems. It’s admirable that Guns followed up the grandiose Illusion twin-towers by returning to their street-band roots.
Spaghetti Incident? and Live Era were both released November 23, six years apart, Spaghetti in 1993 and Era in 1999. As far as GN’R goes, that period’s typically remembered for the band splintering to where singer Axl Rose was the lone classic-era member. Rose’s relationship then with snake-haired guitar-hero Slash was acrimonious at best. As far as albums go, neither Spaghetti or Era are Appetite-essential. But the Guns N’ Roses story isn’t complete without them.
Even amid the daring hard rock, stadiums and drama that was early Nineties GN’R, their new guitarist wasn’t on a leash. “I was never once told what to play and not to play. You could tell if it caught his attention in a good way or in a bad way.”
