By Clarence Yu

With news of the imminent release of Guns N’ Roses’ new album setting the rock music world on fire, I thought it apt to write something about one of its members — to be specific, an ex-member, Slash.

To most of us growing up in the 80’s, Slash was the epitome of the cool, tough, classic rock guitar, refusing to use a whammy bar in an age where ala’ Eddie Van Halen tapping was en vogue, and keeping mostly to Gibson Les Paul’s as his main guitar of choice. He (along with Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi) brought the talk box back to life (a device, when connected to a guitar can make your voice and guitar sound cool and robotic — listen to the intro of “Livin’ On A Prayer by Bon Jovi).

Unknown to most of us then (well, at least to me), Slash wasn’t really that cool at all (at least in my opinion), and he really didn’t bring back classic rock guitar playing (it never really left). In fact, after many listens of their landmark album “Appetite for Destruction,” Izzy Stradlin (the rhythm guitarist) perhaps contributed much more with his sparse, rhythmic playing, and his songwriting (Stradlin wrote most of the good songs).

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OK, sorry ‘coz this is a bit of shameless plugging since I’m one of the writers who contributed an essay to this anthology, along with fellow Soundtrip blogger Erwin Oliva, but man, nakakataba ng puso ang ginawang video nitong fan na ito

I’m talking about “Tikman Ang Langit: An Anthology on the Eraserheads,” the very first book on the Philippines’ own Fab Four.

This book was made possible by our fellow journalists Melvin Calimag of Manila Bulletin and Jing Garcia of Manila Times, who dreamt of coming out with an Eheads book and worked their asses off to make it come true. The anthology is edited by Ces Rodriguez.

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I WAS “lost” last weekend in the piles of books in a local bookstore. I was hunting for a book that was recommended to me earlier by a literary friend. But fate brought me to the “entertainment section” of this bookstore. There I found two remaining copies of “Punks, Poets, Poseurs: Reportage on Pinoy Rock & Roll” by Eric Caruncho.

I checked the price. It said, “50 pesos.” Are you kidding, I told myself. This book is a steal! So I grabbed one copy (now I’m thinking I should have also grabbed the last copy, heh), and went straight to the cashier.

This is an “old” book which I read back in 1996 when it was launched. I must admit I had little knowledge of the Pinoy rock scene in the 1970s leading to the late 1980s, which was about the same time when Baguio’s The Blank became the hottest rock band in the country.

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