Stickin’ to His Guns

John Voland’s review of the Guns N’ Roses show at Perkin’s Palace spent three paragraphs bemoaning the loss of blues in heavy metal/hard rock (“Guns N’ Roses Glam-Slams With Noisy Aggressiveness,” Dec. 28).

Is this his first chance to complain about it? Or does he just need to cover up his ignorance about the band and its music?

“Mr. Brownstone” is not a “getting high is cool” song, but bemoans the fate of heroin addiction, of becoming a slave to the drug and ultimately becoming indolent and unproductive, even for a rocker. At the end of the song it says, “I wish I never met it, said I wish I could leave it all behind.”

“Paradise City” is an original, not a cover of an Aerosmith song. Aerosmith couldn’t have written anything so warped and aggressive. Voland must have been thinking about their cover of “Mama Kin,” which was respectful but uninspired.

Although he seemed to enjoy the show, Voland stooped to nit-picking in his search for negative comments about Guns N’ Roses and metal in general. But I haven’t seen a band this good or different since late ‘70s Van Halen.

I hope they stay alive and out of jail long enough to make more records. I also hope that they don’t move into my neighborhood.

STEPHEN GREENBERG

Van Nuys