This past week I was like a pig in shit. Nine tracks from Chinese Democracy were leaked and I couldn’t be happier. See, Guns n’ Roses are my Led Zeppelin. They’re my Black Sabbath. Appetite for Destruction came out in 1987 when I was 11 and they were pretty much the first hard rock band I had ever really come in contact with. I’m not sure what music my dad liked. I mean, he gave me money to buy records, but I don’t really ever remember him buying anything for himself, so maybe he just liked me enjoying it. I know my mom liked The Moody Blues and Queen, so Queen was probably my first exposure to rock music — but GNR was the first hard rock that I can remember. Thinking about it right now, it was probably pretty cool of my mom to let a preteen listen to Appetite.

I’ve mentioned before how I don’t remember actually listening to much in the ‘80s. But there are two things I remember vividly. The first is coming home from school one afternoon and every hour on the hour huddling around the TV with my friends to watch the MTV premiere of the video for “Paradise City.” And the other was sitting on the back of the school bus and trying to convince all the kids that I had one of the “original” copies of Appetite for Destruction because “Paradise City” was much louder after the whistle on my version.

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By 1989, The Cars were history and leader Ric Ocasek embarked as a full-time solo artist, flexing his Roxy Music/Iggy Pop/Suicide influences to the hilt with a more commercial pop sheen. Not surprisingly, The Cars and Ocasek had built up so much rock goodwill by the end of the ’80s that a second-generation Ocasek rocker was able to score a major-label deal.

Christopher Otcasek, keeping his surname’s correct spelling, formed Glamour Camp and signed to EMI Records, where they released their self-titled debut album. While there’s nary a trace of dad, Glamour Camp treaded on some similar ground, with Otcasek affecting an Iggy croon on the album’s leadoff single, “She Did It.” Anyone expecting a nepotistic train wreck were disappointed; while it was nothing too remarkable or groundbreaking, “She Did It” was perfectly serviceable, even charting on the Modern Rock charts and garnering some light rotation MTV play.

Unfortunately, “pleasant and serviceable” doesn’t necessarily always translate into “big seller,” so Glamour Camp’s debut served also as its swan song. However, the band did score somewhat the following year, when their remake of “Real Wild Child” — a song that, yes, Otcasek idol Iggy co-wrote — was featured on the Pretty Woman soundtrack, which went on to sell slightly under a gazillion copies.

So in that respect, Glamour Camp lives on in millions of CD collections, quite probably with no one even realizing it.

It’s currently out of print, but you can grab used copies of the Glamour Camp CD on Amazon for a whopping 1¢.