The Dirt is the authorized biography of Motley Crue. It is the gold-standard on which other Rockstar books are judged. Could the exploits in (insert Rockstar book here) rival the exploits of Motley Crue? Are they at least half as witty? I believe I have found a book that can equal, or at the very least, share the same shelf space in my vast library of rockstar books. That book is Slash's autobiography entitled  "Slash: The Autobiography"

The Observer has an exclusive look at the book. Here are a few highlights.

On buying a new house outside of Los Angeles:

I was pretty out of control at the time. I remember showing up to meet the contractor to talk about redoing my bathroom and thinking that breaking out a few lines would be a good way to break the ice. He and I stood in the bathroom as he walked me through the work that needed to be done. 'Yeah, yeah, cool, man,' I said. I slapped down the toilet-seat cover and cut out four thick lines of coke. 'You want one?'

He looked pretty uneasy. 'No, no thanks. I'm on the job,' he said. 'OK, right, that's cool,' I said. 'I'll do yours, then.' 'It's not just that, it's also eight o'clock in the morning,' he said, smiling apologetically.

At that moment I was every single nightmare cliche of what that guy had ever heard about rock stars, rolled into one - even more so because he had been hired to turn my extra bathroom and its huge corner Jacuzzi into a massive snake terrarium that took up a quarter of the room.

On writing songs with Izzy and the gang:

We kept rehearsing, and once we'd gotten a few songs together, we went over to Izzy's place to do some writing and see where his head was. It didn't take me long to figure it out. I was in the bathroom over there taking a leak when I noticed the two-inch-thick layer of dust in his shower and bathtub. That thing hadn't been used for weeks - Izzy was that far gone. Axl showed up that day, and regardless we started working on a song that became 'Pretty Tied Up'. I remember that Izzy had taken a cymbal and a broomstick and some strings and had made a sitar out of it. Needless to say, Izzy was pretty fucking high.

On the 'butter tray':

But, to be honest, I was more worried about Steven than Axl by then: he was a huge problem; he was doing tons of blow and his performance had become irregular. I didn't catch on at first; he kept his coke hidden in the refrigerator.

We would be hanging out and sharing a bit of blow, but I couldn't figure out how Steve was always that much more wasted. He'd just get this twinkle in his eye and say, 'Hey man, butter tray,' and point at the fridge.

'Yeah, OK, Steve. Sure,' I'd say. I'd go to the refrigerator, fix myself a drink, and come back with nothing to report. I didn't think he actually wanted me to look in the butter tray. He was that fucked up that I didn't take it seriously.

'Did you see?' he'd ask, grinning wildly. He'd just keep pointing at the refrigerator and saying, 'Butter tray.'

'Yeah, man, I saw it,' I'd say. 'That's a great refrigerator you've got there. Really nice butter tray, man.'

'Butter tray.'

'So, Steven, what are you trying to say?'

Tom Mayhew discovered it eventually. Steven had a steep supply of coke piled up in that butter tray of his.

The following passage sold me on the book. Slash is away at a resort in Arizona.

I kept shooting coke that night just to keep shooting and I was pretty content with myself just going through thos motions for a few hours. And then things got weird. I started shadow-boxing monsters that I saw on the other side of the sheer curtains that framed the large king-size bed. I was bobbing and weaving, as if I were working out at a gym. This shadow-boxing continued all night long until the sun came up, drowning every shadow in the room and ending my activity. Once I snapped out of that trance, I figured that I should probably head out in search of Steven and Doug.

First, I decided to shower, to straighten up a bit. But before that, I opted for one last shot of coke. I felt great when I got under the big rain-style, luxury showerhead. And as I was there under the nice warm water when the coke hallucinations hit me harder than they had that night or ever before. Full daylight was coming in through the skylight, but I watched as long shadows emerged from the corners. They crept up the floor toward me, up the glass of the shower, and took the shape of the shadow monsters I'd boxed earlier. They were right in front of me, filling the glass door, and I wasn't going to let them get me, so I punched them as hard as I could, sending the entire pane of glass into pieces all over the floor. I stood there with a cut hand, under the water, paralysed, paranoid, scanning the bathroom for other assailants. And that's when my little buddies showed up.

They always looked like the creature in Predator to me, but a fraction the size and translucent blue-gray; they were wiry and muscular with the same pointed heads and rubbery-looking dreadlocks. They'd always been a welcome, carefree distraction, but this hallucination was sinister. I could see them gathering in the doorway; there was an army of them, holding tiny machine guns and weapons that looked like harpoons.

I was terrified; I ran across the glass on the floor and slammed the sliding glass door to the bathroom shut. Blood began to form in a pool under me, issuing out from my feet, but I didn't feel a thing; I watched in horror as the Predators squeezed their limbs between the door and door frame and began to slide it open. I put all my weight against it in an effort to hold it shut, but it was no use; they were winning and I was losing my balance on all of the broken glass.

I decided to flee. I broke through the sliding glass door, cutting myself further and spraying debris all over the room. When I ran out of the bungalow, the bright sunlight, the shocking green of the grass, and the colours of the sky were overwhelming; everything was jarring and vivid.

Everything in my room had been so real that I was not prepared, in my condition, to be so suddenly transported from the drawn curtains into the shimmering daylight.

I just ran, fully naked and bleeding, down the fairway, away from the army of Predators I saw over my shoulder every time I turned to look. I needed a reprieve from the harsh daylight, so I ducked through the open door of another bungalow. I hid behind the door, then behind a chair, as the Predators began to fill up the room. There was a maid in there, making the bed, and she started to scream when she saw me. She screamed louder when I tried to use her as a human shield to protect myself from the small hunters on my trail.

I fled again, running at top speed through the resort with a translucent army at my heels; the colours and scenery only added to my dementia. I made it to the back of the main clubhouse and went through the back door and into the kitchen; all of the cooks and activity were dizzying, so I ran out of there, right into the lobby. There were guests and staff everywhere and I remember grabbing a well-dressed businessman standing there with his luggage, once again using him as a human shield. He seemed so together that I believed he could hold the Predators at bay, but I was wrong. They actually got to me at that point and started climbing up my legs, loading their little guns. The businessman didn't want anything to do with me; he shook free so I backed into a utility closet somewhere near the kitchen. As a crowd gathered, I ran out of there again, back outside, eventually finding darkness and shelter in a shed on the fairway, where I hid behind a lawn mower, until finally, the hallucinations began to subside.

Preorder the book here at Amazon.com.