Raz Cue's "The Days of Guns, & Raz's"

Just finished reading the book. Well, I mostly skimmed the parts that weren't GN'R related. I recommend it. He seems to have a great memory of what went down, and contrary to my assumptions, he hung with the band for quite a long time. He also doesn't seem to have very much of an agenda, although he clearly avoids some topics (he touches very gently on drug use and is a bit vague about some details) and probably exaggerates his importance here and there. He also writes quite well and is fully as hell at times. I also got the feeling that those parts I skimmed were good, too. I might read it in full when I have more time. He shed a lot of light on events that I had wondered about.

I haven't read all the non GnR related parts yet either.
I agree with your review.
It also seems that he doesn't like Tracii much  

-----

I somehow didn't think Vicky Hamilton's book would be worth reading, because she has done many interviews and she's been on every GnR documentary. I didn't imagine there would be something more than that in the book. But these early interviews are a real treat!

Blackstar wrote:I haven't read all the non GnR related parts yet either.
I agree with your review.
It also seems that he doesn't like Tracii much  

-----

I somehow didn't think Vicky Hamilton's book would be worth reading, because she has done many interviews and she's been on every GnR documentary. I didn't imagine there would be something more than that in the book. But these early interviews are a real treat!

Vicky is interesting. She obviously writes with a clear agenda. She is out to put the record straight: she was mistreated by Guns N' Roses and mostly blames Axl. They owe her for all she did for them. And to be honest, I kind of agree with her. She was stupid and naive, yes, and they took advantage of it. She housed them, fed them, promoted them, marketed them, all without a written contact. It only lasted for a few months, but these were crucial months when the band was discovered and had the first negotiations with labels. Why did she do all this without a contract? So unprofessional of her. And when they got big, and Geffen wanted a bigger manager, they dropped her immediately. She then sued the band. She will argue that she was their manager and are owed money, and looking at quotes from that period, the band did consider her their manager. Yet, afterwards, with no written contract regulating the client-manager relationship, it was easy for them to reject it. She never was their manager because they had never signed any such agreement. She was just one out of many friends who helped them out, pro bono.

It's funny how Duff barely mentions her in his book. Is it out of shame for how they treated her? Or anger because she sued them? While Steven goes out of his way to praise all she did for them, basically saying that if it wasn't for her they might not have made it.

Vicky is also less trustworthy than, say, Raz, due to how she writes. Again, she has an obvious agenda so you have to account for that, too. But even accounting for that, it is awkward to see how detailed she describes some events, it is simply too detailed. She couldn't possibly have remembered all those minute details. And then you start wondering, if she is obviously okay with just making up some details to flesh out an anecdote, where does it stop? What is fiction and what is real? What can you trust? I never got the same feeling from reading Raz' book, or at least not as often.

The interviews and clippings she has added to the book is all meant to support her agenda. The Music Connection interview is added because she is featured in it. It takes place in her apartment and she is quoted in the interview. Again, supporting her role as a manager. The same is the ensuing letters from Axl and herself, the point is to portray Axl as an ungrateful villain.

I haven't finished Vicky's book yet, and will write a short review when I have. I haven't found out if she even mentions the fact that she sued the band. I don't think she does, but maybe she talks about it later on in the book. If she doesn't it means she deliberately hides out a pretty important event in her life, and would make sense to be added since she talks so much about how they owed her. Why did she leave it out? Probably because she didn't win the case (?). It doesn't support her agenda.

I just got the kindle edition of Vicky's book, so I'll be reading it too when I have time.

It seems Axl didn't like her from early on. I'd read the letter he had sent to Music Connection after the interview (Stephen Davis has included that too in his book), in which he discredited her as manager.
I wondered what the reason was, since she had housed them when Axl and Slash were hiding from the police. There must be some other explanation apart from Axl being just a "villain".

I think when Axl wrote that letter, Vicky had already sued them and he was angry about that. He felt betrayed. He might have had a plan to pay her back, and I believe he told her she would get what she was due, so he might have felt she went behind his back when she sued them. The sue was settled out of court, btw. I think she sued for $10,000, so she probably got that or less.

Just finished Vicky's book. I won't post a review since I only read the GNR related parts. As I said above, you get the feeling she is slightly adjusting things to suit her agenda. She does mention her suing the band, but that it happened much later than when it was reported by the media. By doing that she can claim that Axl's animosity towards her was not partially due to the lawsuit, but more unreasonable. I don't know why it is so important to her to paint him the villain, the whole band mooched off her and refused to pay her, it wasn't only Axl. I believe there are things that she doesn't reveal.

I read the part from when the band was living at her house to a little after her suing them.
Before she mentions the lawsuit, she says that Axl had sent her a threatening message on her answering machine after she had been interviewed for a GnR feature article on Musician. She makes it look like it was very serious and Axl could really kill her.

Blackstar wrote:I read the part from when the band was living at her house to a little after her suing them.
Before she mentions the lawsuit, she says that Axl had sent her a threatening message on her answering machine after she had been interviewed for a GnR feature article on Musician. She makes it look like it was very serious and Axl could really kill her.

Yes, I have added it to the history thread. Again, what she refuses to say is that this happened after she had sued the band. I am not saying it isn't entirely conceivable that Axl was angry at her for what she said in the interview (calling Axl "evil"), but that he probably was angry about her suing the band, too. For some reason she finds it opportune to claim that the lawsuit happened much later.

When Vicky's suing the band was reported by the media? Was it before 1988?
EDIT: I read the articles from 1988. Yes, Vicky definitely adjusts the timeline of events so that it suits her narrative.

Blackstar wrote:When Vicky's suing the band was reported by the media? Was it before 1988?
EDIT: I read the articles from 1988. Yes, Vicky definitely adjusts the timeline of events so that it suits her narrative.

I am actually not sure when she sued the band. I hope to figure it out. But the first reference to the lawsuit I have found (and I have many dozen interviews to trawl through still), is August 1988 (Screamer Magazine) although an interview from April 1987 (Sounds Magazine) alludes to some "legal wrangles" between the band and "former managers". In the book she implies the suit being filed in 1989 (she says the three-year statue of limitation was about to run out, and she "managed" the band until the end of March 1986 suggesting that she had to sue by March 1989).

It could also be that she had talked about suing the band before 1989, and magazines ran with that story, though she actually first did it in 1989. Or she could perhaps have sued twice? Once in early 1987 for only $10,000 (as per Musician Magazine in December 1988), and then later for $1,000,000 (as per her book).