A Blast From The Sunset Strip Past

Wanna see a grainy piece of glam history? Last night, Eric was scrolling YouTube and found this little gem of Axl Rose, Tracii Guns and Shark Island all on stage together in 1985. There's probably two minutes of stage talk at the beginning before the music starts and the guys launch into a cover of "Rock n' Roll."

I always wonder how much other rare video is around, tucked on tapes in someone's attic out in California and everywhere else with a big rock scene. #Nostalgia

Comments

[Kixchix]

Shark Island (new to me) intros Axl Rose to a cricket like response. Lol

I love how you can so clearly tell white shadows from dark shadows in this clip. Excellent footage.

Love me these vintage clips

[EddieLongHair]

When I saw this I thought, hmm... Shark Island sounds familiar. And since my current (actually, for the past year) work situation has my office (actually, edit room) located in my attic I figured I'd take a look around. The attic is where all my old CDs also reside, and lo and behold there it is! "Law of the Order", the bands first album. "Paris Calling" was the kind of one-hit-wonder that I remembered. Not bad, really. It seems they actually reformed in 2019 and did some recording and touring. Bad timing I guess. Don't know what they're up to now. And the grainy video brought me back to the old days when my best friend, Johnny, was in a local band here in NJ called "Sionide". They always played "Rock and Roll" during their set. I even remember using a video of them playing that song at a local skating rink for a college TV project I was doing at the time. Ah, the good ol' days!

[GNR]

Sionide ? Winning the internet today for a cool band name.

[Him]

I was already a big (though young) metal fan at this time. But, boy oh boy, to have lived a life where shows like this were part of my DNA.

EddieLongHair, what other treasures are up there?!?! Share the secrets of your vault!

[EddieLongHair]

How about this one, Him?
From a few years later, but just the same, a treasure! No video, just the song.
American Angel were a band that formed in about '89, I think.
I saw them perform at Studio 1 and maybe L'Amour back in the day.
They never made it big but they were pretty good. I found their EP from '92 up here in the attic and this was my favorite song. They used to play it on WSOU - Seton Hall's Pirate Radio!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R11ZqcpOGmM

[Him]

Thanks for sharing, EddieLongHair!!! Amazing stuff. The lead singer's name is Rocco. How could it not be being from the East Coast? But. seriously, nice harmonies. Tight song. Makes you wonder how so many lesser-sounding bands made it big and bands like this just fell by the wayside.

One of the reasons I love this site (even if I wish there was more chatter on here these days). Again, I appreciate it Eddie.