Did you really feel "welcomed" to the jungle by axl rose, or do you think that was sort of just insincere, halfhearted graciousness?

Maybe I need more friends.

But, on the other hand, did any of you welcome HIM? It's not always black and white, you know?

i did feel welcomed to the jungle, but it was all about a particular place and time that has little meaning anymore

But maybe the jungle IS NOT A PLACE BUT IN FACT A METAPHOR!!

What a gyp.

http://www.secret-passage.com/secret/serpentine.html

BAHAHA

http://www.niggazwithhats.com/xtras/thebuttislikesociety.jpg"You see, the butt is like society! Which we wanna see as openness and expansion, y'unnerstand, but the White Man wants to CLOG it up til it's closed, and we tryin' to get a FOOT all up in that muh'fucka, youknow'uhmean?"

As per the Ax'N'Roses song, I certainly felt entertained by it;
as regards the "jungle", never really cared to think 'bout that.

-- Nate Patrin (natepatrin550...), July 27th, 2003.

Oh Jesus, that just blows my mind. I need to sit down.

yes, he probably would have.

Was it a rhetorical question? How does one feel an adjective?

I didn't think it was very Jon Williamsesque, but hey, never mind - he took the baby and ran with it.

Perhaps restructuring initiatives were already being envisioned by Axl, who also foresaw that workplace familiarisation procedures, not to mention a robust and transparent professional development structure, would be required for motherfuckers newly recruited to the ring. Details of the pros ("fun and games") are qualified by an honest assessment of the cons ("it gets worse here every day").

Presumably by now the induction programme has been expanded to include line management flowcharts (probably quite straightforward ones) and bullet-pointed aims and objectives designed to facilitate appraisal at the six-month and two-year marks, not to mention the criteria according to which one’s ass might become fired.

That was a better full throttle funk song than the Red Hot Chili Peppers ever managed to try, for a start.

Ummm. Wrong. Please do not read this as a zealous endorsement of the Red Hots, but prior to their tireless days of heroin-addled introspection, the RHCP had quite the knack for the "full throttled funk." I'd cite "Good Time Boys", "Mommy Where's Daddy," "Special Secret Song Inside" and "Subway To Venus" have megatons more groove than the hirsute brothers of firearms and flowers.

It is also with great, rueful agita that I report that the Joke are slated to OPEN for the Red Hot Chili Peppers sometime in August in Europe. O the humanity.

Chuck Eddy to thread! Steven Adler, secret weapon.

Oh that's right. He's a secret weapon.

i ripped this off from someone else ripping it off

I thought it was a good ILX type question.

http://www.an-irrational-domain.net/images/geordie/geordie50.JPG

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030725/capt.1059132117.japan_politics_xits104.jpg

Those prickly pears sure are tasty!

You can taste the bright lights
But you won't get them for free

Torches can be rented from Cheetah's Gift Shop if you're going out at night.

I'm sorry.

[sound of Butthead chortle]

We're all born into Hell and Axl is doing us the favor of pointing this out and letting us know we're not alone.

Wouldn't this be a great idea for the future of the Millenium Dome?

And if Axl wasnt even welcome in the jungle himself - what gives him the right to invite others ?

"Welcome to my clubhouse
I hope the waiter don't SCARE you
We're going to make you feel
Like you belong..."

I THINK SO

PS. AXL is the best, I love him!

As for being welcomed to the jungle, 23 Skidoo did it better on Seven Songs. And Pere Ubu did it better on "Heart of Darkness" (as did Mission of Burma in their cover of it).

Main Entry: 2serpentine
Function: noun
: something that winds sinuously

Maybe he was welcoming a bunch of myopic roller-coaster addicts
into his haunted house of rebel-alcoholic dreamers.

Maybe he was welcoming grumpy old seniors to the
realm of sonic smashing... who can tell ?

-- Nate Patrin (natepatrin550...), August 2nd, 2003 1:43 AM.

Compared to Alice's sincere welcome on the front cover of the record, Axl's seems like one coming from a guy they hire to yell out all the stuff they have for sale at a discount store.

It is insincere, halfhearted graciousness

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/07/21eighties.html

I think Claire Zulkey was at the 2004 election-watching party I went to at Kenan's apartment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEy6Zs7KL7k

spent most of that trying to figure out what band he was sitting in w/ before realizing 'o i guess that's guns n roses now'

Lord, that's not very far from being a St. Sanders video.

better was worse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bLMmRVlhfRw

That's Tony Clifton right?

spent most of that trying to figure out what band he was sitting in w/ before realizing 'o i guess that's guns n roses now'

― balls, Monday, October 22, 2012 1:12 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wookiefoot perhaps?

Top 10 all-time thread title candidate here

hahahaha omg

that guitarist, DJ Ashba? is the weirdest looking dude

also lol at the random band member dancing around waving a flag the whole time

Hahah well Pitchfork just reblogged my post of this on Tumblr, it'll be everywhere soon enough.

everyone needs to know the hideousness & hilarity

official camp Axl explanation is strep throat

He should get that looked at, he's had it for about two years.

omg "better"....his tubby stage moves on all this stuff are amazing too

okay so did no one think that tuning the guitars would be a good idea before starting the song

also there is no fucking way Axl could make any sound remotely near the pitches he's hitting if he had strep, he would basically sound like a hoarse Andrew Eldritch

execution aside what style of music are they even trying to play this in, so fd up

Still not convinced this isn't one of those "shreds" videos.

Guns 'N Roses unplugged doing music that isn't their weepy ballads is a terrible idea anyway, about the only thing that would be worse is something like an acoustic Meat Beat Manifesto set

you don't understand, "strep throat" is the name of my guitar

xpost DJP otm -- he was, in whatever form, "singing", he just couldn't sustain certain high notes without ditching out ...which is not strep throat

they apparently recorded an acoustic version of Better, so they're really wedded to the idea that it somehow works as an acoustic song

the drummer is using those lil bunches of sticks sticks is how i knew it was real

although it's true that Andrew Eldritch singing "Welcome To The Jungle" over severely out of tune/out of rhythm guitars would be amazing and must happen immediately

I have also long thought that the main thing "Welcome To The Jungle" needed in order to really make it pop is bongos

ned, you bastard, i've already been having chest pain issues lately

also am I wrong or are the guitarists Perry Bamonte and Adam Duritz

imho each original member of gnr should form their own gnr and tour the world playing horrible grotesque renditions, maybe they could have a festival

I was thinking the same thing about Jungle DJP -- bongos/lotsa percussion would be awesome

I was hoping for more of a Don't Cry, November Rain, slowjam kinda show or change up the old tunes with just a guitar or whatever.
bleh

dunno if I should be sad that I can't tell which one is Tommy Stinson

http://i.imgur.com/07o8u.png

shakey noo

but they had like, 4 guitarists on stage and it barely sounded like they had one

oh Shakey no

hahaha this is still cached in my browser so I'm still listening to it

haha who/what is 'shakey pictures'?

oh duh it's neil young's film outfit

Shakey Mo Pictures.

Production company specialising in obituaries

but they had like, 4 guitarists on stage and it barely sounded like they had one

the saddest part (well okay one of the saddest parts) is how there's all those guitars and cowboy hats and not a single motherfucking one of them knows how to pick a lead on an acoustic guitar.

Well of course a benefit for cerebral palsy would be filmed by Shakey pictures.

thank you so much for making a joke like that before I could succumb to the temptation

hWah!

i like how theres at least one guy w/a long braided goatee up there

Well of course a benefit for cerebral palsy would be filmed by Shakey pictures.

*pedant alert*

Neil Young has epilepsy. Which earned him the nickname "Shakey". "Bernard Shakey" is the fake name he has used when involved in filmmaking, and Shakey Films is the name of his production company. Neil's son has cerebral palsy, and that is why Neil set up the Bridge School Foundation.

the end

can we still blame you for this disappearing?

sure

this DJ Ashba dude looks like a Ken doll of "Has-Been LA Metal Dude"

like I'm suspicious that he's not at least part robot

He looks like both Mick Mars and Mystery.

― beachville, Thursday, April 12, 2012 10:00 AM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no one will be surprised to know he was involved in Nikki Sixx's terrible Sixx AM bullshit

the whole world of LA studio musicians is so strange to me. How is this guy in such demand?

I basically feel the same way about Dave Navarro

sheesh how many more "rocker guy" signifiers could he possibly cram into his outfit??
ripped denim
black leather
bandanna
sunglasses
dumbass hat
wallet chain
t-shirt with skull

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Gm06C04U0

actually he's looking almost gg allin-ish here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Gm06C04U0

oops didn't mean to post video twice. anyway that one works. for now

http://cdn.7static.com/static/img/sleeveart/00/002/611/0000261176_350.jpg

one of the dudes in the band has a total Ronnie Wood thing going on.

kinda glad Tommy Stinson hasn't been completely Affliction'ed through all of this bullshit and is still a vaguely classy looking dude

...she says with complete bias, lol

I miss the buckethead/finck days where there was authentic weirdness instead of sad gimmicks

agreed

even finck & bumblefoot together was fun

http://www.nme.com/news/guns-n-roses/61421

Gawker has newly preserved the clip and added some thoughts, but of course:

http://gawker.com/5954050/axl-rose-performed-at-bridge-school-but-guns-n-roses-is-still-a-fresh-corpse-this-morning

thank god

"thoughts"

Well, "firing synapses"

i am so full of feelings about axl. the "karma's a bitch" thing isn't even schadenfreude for me, because i used to be a big fan, and i still like most of the old material. so i'm sad that he can't sing anymore and is still trotting out the hits with a bunch of session hacks. but there's no denying he's always been a shitty person. it took me a while to fully come to terms with that.

i'm always surprised at how clunky and stitched-together a song WTTJ is

apparently it always surprises his current band, too

guys, i'm legitimately really sad! 12-year-old me thought he was so cute and rebellious!

Our 8th-grade English teacher asked us, who's the next James Dean, the live-fast, die-young icon that will serve as the tragic face of our generation?

And we all said AXL!

yeah get bent otm - I've had a hard, hard time letting go. It's only since Chinese Democracy that I've stopped expecting anything good from him. I was always so hopeful, you know?

at least pplains' class got the "tragic" part right.

its weird how he lost his ability to dance and sing, are we sure the real axl didnt die young

he must have pressed a button of some kind.

but there's no denying he's always been a shitty person. it took me a while to fully come to terms with that.

I am mystified that anyone would have ever had the impression he was NOT a shitty person. being a shitty person was his whole persona!

yeah but teenage fandom doesn't really allow for realities of 'shitty person' to filter in, or at least it didn't for me

I had no idea til I was older that Slash was wasted 100% of the time, that they were all junkies etc

I mean I was 12, it's not like you're scouring the newspapers and magazines for THE REAL STORY

it's called denial. i really did not want to acknowledge that "one in a million" existed. la la la la can't hear you, etc.

this is like when friends of mine (primarily women) say they had no idea Boy George was gay

xp

I mean I was 12, it's not like you're scouring the newspapers and magazines for THE REAL STORY

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, October 23, 2012 4:08 PM (44 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

speak for yrself lady *tilts fedora*

encyclopedia lagoon on the case

this is like when friends of mine (primarily women) say they had no idea Boy George was gay

hey, my first rock star crush was george michael. no one's born with gaydar.

I guess boys schoolyard gossip covers different topics than girls'

when I was in elementary school it seems like EVERY SINGLE pop star was rumored to be gay - Michael Jackson, Motley Crue, Boy George, George Michael, all the guys in Duran Duran etc

I still love that there were dudes in my high school who were CONVINCED Poison was an all-female band

oh, they're female? who plays their instruments for them?

xpost Shakey that was me! George Michael too. I didn't know Freddie Mercury was gay til well after he died! I just liked their music and wasn't party to that information that other ppl knew. I had no older siblings or male friends or anyone that would ever think to clue me on that (which at the time would have also had to entail explaining what it was)

I led a very naive childhood/teendom, what can I say

tbf they do look like some fugly women here
http://c3.cduniverse.ws/resized/250x500/music/637/7242637.jpg

xpost DJP - Mr Veg has a story from college where he was hanging out with friends in their dorm room, and talking about cute girls. One of the guys in the group was all "I think those girls are SUPER hot" and pointed to the Look What The Cat Dragged In album-flat hanging on the wall

lol

what did Freddie Mercury have against Jaws and Star Wars? (I feel history has vindicated Freddie on the Star Wars front but this is a weird beef to have in a song about cycling.)

lol little boys are (were?) such vicious little homophobes it probably just got discussed amongst us more

xp

actually one time a guy I had a crush on told me that urban legend about Jon Bon Jovi getting his stomach pumped and them finding a litre of cum or whatever. and it wasn't til years later that I figured out that was supposed to imply he was gay. I was like, 14 or 15 and I was all, why would he drink semen? LOL :/

i totally remember that urban legend. but i heard it about rod stewart too.

yeah apparently there's a whole bunch of variations?

I know we all mourned MCA earlier this year, but every Beastie Boy fan knows that it was King Ad-Rock who was the first to die when he O.D.'ed in 1987.

my fave was the kid who told me an MTV film crew had, on live TV, interrupted Nikki Sixx and Vince Neil in the act of coitus

wow

was there peanut butter involved?

one the one hand, i have a horrible mental picture in my head
on the other hand, i'm glad it's not tommy lee and mick mars

haha as soon as i saw this post:

I guess boys schoolyard gossip covers different topics than girls'

― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, October 23, 2012 3:12 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...i was gonna say, in schoolyard gossip every single famous man has had a gallon of cum pumped out of his stomach. and here we are

marilyn manson was the last guy i recall that seemed to attract the gallons of cum/having rib removed to suck his own dick type rumors...i wonder who took up the mantle after he wasn't relevant anymore?

its weird how he lost his ability to dance and sing, are we sure the real axl didnt die young

― --bob marley (lag∞n), Tuesday, October 23, 2012 8:00 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

His voice sounded pretty darn good in 2006 believe it or not

macaulay culkin, one/all of the new kids, etc etc

xp hahah AAAAAND i was gonna say that the marilyn manson rib-removal story was kind of the industrial-goth variation on this thing

yeah get bent otm - I've had a hard, hard time letting go. It's only since Chinese Democracy that I've stopped expecting anything good from him. I was always so hopeful, you know?

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, October 23, 2012 7:58 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think CD is great. Axl can still write good music. Releasing it is a big hurdle.

i wonder who took up the mantle after he wasn't relevant anymore?

skrillex?

I first heard the rib removal story as an explanation of how Janet Jackson lost all of that weight between Rhythm Nation and janet

Janet Jackson had a rib removed so she could suck her own dick?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XOX_juLtAXU/T-OXGYgvIbI/AAAAAAAAAa8/s8ZyJS-ccqQ/s1600/hugh+marlowe.jpg

"I like that Axl, that quality of quiet graciousness."

are the rivers cuomo leg lengthening procedure and queen's dwarf cocaine party rumors still true?

Janet Jackson had a rib removed so she could suck her own dick?

puts "If" in a whole new light, doesn't it

hmm.

... as far as I know the Rivers Cuomo story is true?

Cuomo was born with his left leg 44 mm (13⁄4 in) shorter than his right leg. After the success of The Blue Album, Cuomo underwent a procedure to correct the condition. This involved the surgical breaking of the bone in his leg, followed by several months of wearing a steel brace which required self-administered "stretching" of the leg four times daily; Cuomo likened the ordeal to "crucifying [his] leg."[31] An x-ray of the leg is part of the album art for "The Good Life" single, and the experience inspired him to write the song. Cuomo can be seen wearing the brace on an episode of the Late Show with David Letterman, which can be found on their DVD Video Capture Device.

urban legends about pop stars are alive in the twitter era, lady gaga has a penis etc

i wonder if we can lend credibility to the manson story if we edit wikipedia to say he donated the rib to be ground up and incorporated in rivers leg.

lol @ "Cuomo was born with his left leg 44 mm (13⁄4 in) shorter than his right leg" -- i think the bigger issue would be a newborn baby with a leg that's over a foot long!

ah yeah gaga! she's got the juice it would take to have a fake dick rumor, props

I really want to make a Mailboxes Etc joke but it's totally inorganic and it would date me

or i dunno i misread that as 13.4 inches, i guess it actually means 4 and a quarter inches. still. (xpost)

Elvis always wanted Priscilla to do the leg-extending thing. </fact>

you mean 1.75 inches?

ohhh i couldn't tell that '3/4' was in smaller lettering than '1'

I am more surprised you had no context for how long 44 mm might be

oh i glossed over that

i have a good handle for metric lengths but when i see them i still go 'fuck you tell it to me in feet and inches, frenchie'

hahaha

I feel like I live in an alternate universe where Axl is still alive and making music becuz really out of anyone from his era he should be dead. Like maybe even he's surprised he's still alive.

"C'mon dudes I'm fat & terrible now, but really I shouldn't even be here, I should have died in like 1993."

Axl being alive is how I know I'm in the Matrix basically

i wonder what josh freese knows about axl that he can't legally talk about...

many xpost to Matt Armstrong - yeah I saw that 06 warmup show and stupidly on the back of that actually BOUGHT tickets for that tour, which they promptly cancelled of course, lol.

There's a couple of ok songs on CD but I mostly can't stand it. I dunno what I wanted but it wasn't that. Mr Veg really likes it though, so ymmv. Or, my mmv.

Axl was always destructive but not self-destructive -- everyone around him had addictions but it seemed like he was just the most extreme case of Lead Singer Syndrome in history, nothing that would lead him to an early death

otm

what's weird to me about Axl is that he's this strange bipolar hermit who somehow tours nonstop. He gives one interview every five years and he refuses to release new material out of perfectionist fear, but he's happy to jet off to Buenos Aires or Prague to huff and puff his way through Nightrain again. I guess he must just love touring.

the man might also have substantial expenses/debts as well

he probably gets bored hanging out in his mansion

That's what I was thinking after seeing him at Bridge. I think out of everything he really just kind of wants/needs the applause and validation, but it's never to the degreee that he used to get it so he runs off and holes up on terror island in his laboratory hoping to wow the world with his giant death ray or whatever, and every time it's like THOSE FOOLS! THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT POWERS i HAVE. I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!

yeah he barely toured at all for like a decade, the difference between now and the '90s might be how much $ from the glory days he's sitting on.

btw is there any Bridge School video that hasn't been taken down out there, i still haven't seen it

i mean, the amount of money wasted in high priced studios on the recording of chinese democracy alone...boggles the mind

the credits on Chinese Democracy are pretty eye-opening in a O_o kind of way

i mean, the amount of money wasted in high priced studios on the recording of chinese democracy alone...boggles the mind

― terrell sug (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:43 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the label paid for all that tho

all of it? wow...long leash if so...these credits from chinese democracy blow my mind:

Roy Thomas Baker – Initial album production

Paul Buckmaster – Orchestra conductor, Orchestral arrangement on track 14, Initial Symphonic arrangements on tracks 4, 6, 12

i hope someday there's some kind of sprawling investigative report on the inner workings of post-UYI Guns/Axl like that Vanity Fair piece on Scientology

I think the label's final bill was 14 million.

the use of the word "initial" is pretty amazing, it's like those big hollywood movies where they have to give a screenplay credit to the guy who did the first draft before 8 different script doctors who gradually changed every single word

which somehow they managed to recoup in the best buy deal xp

i hope someday there's some kind of sprawling investigative report on the inner workings of post-UYI Guns/Axl like that Vanity Fair piece on Scientology

― my mansplain songz (some dude), Tuesday, October 23, 2012 4:48 PM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

god yeah, i wonder if there's anyone who was close enough to it that could do it....

at least i hope tommy stinson got his house paid off through all of this

i hope someday there's some kind of sprawling investigative report on the inner workings of post-UYI Guns/Axl like that Vanity Fair piece on Scientology

― my mansplain songz (some dude), Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:48 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is pretty good but doesn't have the dirt we want

http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/top-posts/the-chinese-democracy-years-1994-2008/

lol who even keeps track of shit to the detail??

Caram Costanzo – digital editing on all tracks; arrangements on tracks 2, 6 and 8; drum arrangements on tracks 3, 6 and 14; sub drums on track 13; production; mixing; engineering; initial production on track 8

the best stories we have are almost all related to Buckethead:

- requesting and getting a giant chicken coop to play guitar in

- watching porn nonstop in said chicken coop until Axl asked him to stop

- becoming very upset when a KFC franchise was shown in flames on the news in the aftermath of 9/11

- allowing a dog's crap to sit in the coop until it stunk up the whole studio

this was one of the best things about the 06 shows: Bumblefoot and Finck doing Aguilera's 'Beautiful'
(start at the 4 min mark)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd5gUn_yj0M&t=4m

axl is such a weird character. more than almost any other rock star on his level, i get the sense that he's a genuinely fucked-up, troubled guy who can't totally control what he does or what he says. if you read his interviews they basically consist of therapy session psychobabble, like, 'i'm really under a lot of pressure right now, i'm struggling just to keep everything under control,' etc. etc. listening to 'AFD' the other day for the first time in a while it struck me how many of axl's lyrics are basically just long strings of tough-guy cliches or lines that sound so hackneyed and artificial they might as well be cliches -- 'take that one to heart,' 'you learn to live like an animal,' 'i'm ready to crash and burn.' yet there's this really genuine sense of rage, resentment, and self-loathing radiating through most of it.

"Rose said that Freese was one of the easiest drummers to work with -- and friendliest. When Spinner spoke to Freese, he took the time to return the compliment. "Everyone always baits me to give them a crazy Axl story," he admits. "I don't really have any. I spent two years in a studio with him (and) I never saw any mood swings. He was never not cool to me. So, I am always quick to defend the guy, even though I know his reality is different than mine. Then again, everyone has a different reality."

that matrix joke might be more truth than joke!

axl is doing jimmy kimmel's show on wednesday

awesome link matt; awesome post j.d.

Finck’s part was wiped and Jane’s Addiction/Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro was invited to add guitar parts. “There’s no story,” Navarro said later. “They just called me up, and I went down to the studio. I spent about an hour and a half there. I played a guitar solo, and that’s it. There really wasn’t much direction to give me. I think that that’s why they called me.” (Navarro later said that Axl called the studio while he was playing and from the speakerphone had told him to “play with more feeling”.)

*dying*

so many truthbombs itt

(In 1995 Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet asked the guitarist why just about everyone in the band had made a solo record except Axl. “Axl thinks that Guns is his solo project,” said Slash.)

Is it just me or does it seem like this whole thing started because Axl & Duff were butthurt that Slash had written so many songs without them.

i don't think there was anything anyone else in the band could've done that wouldn't have ultimately resulted in this mess, aside from MAYBE if the other guys had stopped Axl from retaining ownership of the band name

Duff?

what should axl have otherwise done with his time though?

come up with a cure for fucking cancer wtih that kinda money and time, at least

"welcome to the jungle, baby, you're going into FULL REMISSSION!"?

xgau on Chinese Democracy is a masterpiece of condescension

Chinese Democracy [Geffen, 2008]
Hopeless eccentric spends most of his adult life and a large chunk of his ill-gotten fortune trying to make the perfect album. Succeeds, kind of, on his own totally irrelevant terms. Nobody cares. Since he's no longer capable of leading young white males astray, this effort isn't just pleasurable artistically. It's touching on a human level. Noble, even. I didn't think he had it in him. B+

haha i think that's one of the most otm reviews of the album that's been published actually

nice

Buckethead is a goldmine of weird

Richard Fortus, a friend of Tommy Stinson was also considered before Axl settled on Brian Carroll, aka avant-garde shredder Buckethead. Axl invited Bucket over on Christmas Day. The guitarist was upset that no-one had given him a certain hard-to-find Leatherface doll he’d been coveting as a gift. As Buckethead later put it: “Got invited to Axl’s on Christmas night; never met him before. Sad about not getting the doll but it is OK, but still sad. Get to Axl’s, he presents this box wrapped up. The Michael Myers version has been out for a while, knew it was the same box. Figured it was Michael Myers and opened it up. There was Leatherface.”

To Buckethead it was a sign that Axl understood him – he was in. Another year had passed.

yeah that xgau review is really something

aero next time you have to fill out a job description in travel papers or a tax form can you please write 'leading young white males astray'

Man that acoustic Welcome to the Jungle is like Little Martha never happened. So painfully bad

oh man

Izzy told Classic Rock about how he’d stopped off at Axl’s house around that time. Axl was friendly and then “probably a month later, one night he calls me [and] we got into the issue of me leaving Guns N’ Roses. I told him how it was on my side. Told him exactly how I felt about it and why I left… But, I mean he had a fucking notepad. I could hear him [turning the pages] going, ‘Well, ah, you said in 1982… blah, blah, blah…’ And I’m like, ‘What the fuck – 1982?’. He was bringing up a lot of really weird old shit. I’m like, whatever, man. But that’s the last time I talked to him.”

Izzy actually wrote a couple songs with nuGNR, one of them is a finished song according to Axl

yeah the paragraph right before that says that Izzy and Duff made a bunch of demos for the band in '95

Izzy has toured with nuGnR in recent years

well yeah the Classic Rock article is a few years old

In the fall, a new A&R man was hired to help bring the project into completion. He was someone who specialised in providing the ‘final push’ for albums nearing completion: legendary Alice Cooper/Lou Reed/Pink Floyd producer Bob Ezrin. As Alice Cooper told it later,”To this day, really good songwriters that are ready to finish an album call me up and go, ‘Do you have Bob Ezrin’s number?’…Bob’s not going to be a yes man. He’s going to go in there and tell you how many (decent) songs you actually have… He did it with Guns N’Roses.

“I know Axl called him up and said, ‘I want you to listen to Chinese Democracy and tell me what I’ve got [that’s good].’ Bob listened to it and said, ‘Three songs.’ This is after seven years [of songwriting].”
In mid-September, retailers were notified that Chinese Democracy was projected to be released in November, which does seem to support the notion that the record was essentially done, and – prior to his negative assessment – Ezrin was merely called in for some final pre-release tweaks.

haha so Ezrin was really the guy who spooked the groundhog for 8 more years of winter

after which point there were STILL only three songs on the final album

three songs that Ezrin liked

and that guy made Music from "The Elder", so his word is bond

those were axl's pained cries on 'the kids'

the thing that stands out is how everyone involved from early on til the end said how good the material they heard was.

they wanted to believe

haha true

even beyond ego or lack of objectivity, i feel like really good studio monitors can give you such an unrealistically flattering idea of what a work in progress will sound like once other people put it on their humble commonplace speakers/headphones

well pro tools ruins everything as any fule kno xpost

the final album was more like a mosaic of the work that went into it...i have always been interested in how it would have been on the first pass of the album, minus so much overworking

Do you feel welcome?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Gm06C04U0

the final album was more like a mosaic of the work that went into it...i have always been interested in how it would have been on the first pass of the album, minus so much overworking

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, October 24, 2012 4:03 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I bet there was a lot of stuff that sounded like Oh My God (which I like a lot fwiw). The hugely negative reaction to that led to a lot of overcooking.

the really strange one is that so many people involved really loved Prostitute, which sounds like just another ballad on the album version

It took me to the 2:54 mark to think that that Bridge Concert video might not be St. Sanders' subtlest piece yet.

"I bet there was a lot of stuff that sounded like Oh My God (which I like a lot fwiw). The hugely negative reaction to that led to a lot of overcooking.

― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, October 24, 2012 12:25 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

there are interviews around--i'm looking for a link, but can't seem to find any--that basically confirm this without directly saying it. Axl was really high on that sound for quite some time

omg thank you earlnash

Axl saying "you know where you are? you in the jungle baby" in the Bridge School performance sounds uncannily like Mr. Hankey The Christmas Poo

Also a lot like Dr. Rockso.

hahah, i was just checking in to point out Axl's likeness to Mickey Mouse in that bit, but both of your suggestions are better. i swear Axl was sucking on helium balloons before the performance.

having re-watched that clip after a day gone without, it's transcended from laughably bad to almost surreal.

I could never have prepared myself for this travesty. He's surely finished now. This can't go on.

Still not convinced this isn't one of those "shreds" videos.

― pplains, Monday, October 22, 2012 4:50 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

thats exactly what i thought

2:46 is the bit where i really start to feel sorry for him. he's so far out of his depth trying to recreate the song it's not funny, and he obviously realises that he has to step up his game and sing this part with effort and sincerity. but as yet another trainwreck moment, it becomes emblematic of his struggle as a whole.

it's probably the only performance i'll ever watch where a singer forgetting the words is the least of his problems.

Yee-haw

Can't wait to watch this.

It fucking hurts.

Welcome to the Jungle video Axl was my favorite Axl, followed by kilt and chest protector Axl.

dolphin swimming axl is the best

Chinstrap beard Axl is pretty low on the list, I think.

i like whistling axl
http://cache.vevo.com/Content/VevoImages/video/6FDCA475559DFB2F0823795F3D19D76F.jpg

Time is a cruel mistress.

Someone already took a similar potshot but re: Ezrin... dude who red-lined LOU REED albums is gonna tell me how many good songs I really have? Get the fuck outta here.

That woman on his arm is now

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTc5MDc1NDEwNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwNDg4NTg1._V1._SX214_CR0,0,214,314_.jpg

Someone already took a similar potshot but re: Ezrin... dude who red-lined LOU REED albums is gonna tell me how many good songs I really have?

^also a dude who manned some near perfect Alice Cooper albums.

all lou reed albums are masterpieces you just don't know how to listen right

the kimmel appearance is tonight, yes?

i honestly thought axl was neil doing an axl imitation when i first clicked on the clip

only eventually did the moves suggest someone slightly younger than 60

I just made this on Fake Convos, and it's probably not as funny as it should be, but it took a while and I'm gonna share it anyway:

http://i.imgur.com/S3FcL.jpg

there's no way Axl actually shows up for Kimmel tonight, right?

i say yes, he'll do it to promote the vegas dates cuz he needs the money.

Bumblefoot is jamming with the house band

sucks that jimmy kimmel's show isn't actually live

http://cdn.beta.abc.com/service/image/index/id/d43a57c2-1789-4d82-a283-7454d9f227e6/dim/114x114.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A6BRu6zCMAAV9Nk.jpg:large

cool, axl's into cosplay!

so surreal to see him do a tv interview

what was it like? should I watch it online? DETAILS

it was fine. rather bizarrely positive audience response to axl listing his current bandmates.

haha yeah big outpouring of support for DJ Ashba

http://dlvr.it/2N7TmS

lol @ http://cdn.beta.abc.com/service/image/index/id/d43a57c2-1789-4d82-a283-7454d9f227e6/dim/114x114.jpg

For those off-put by Axl's disingenuous welcome, here are two far more appealing jungle invitations:

"Jungle life, you're far away from nothing
It's all right, you won't miss home
Take a chance, leave everything behind you
Come and join me, won't be sorry, it's easy to survive"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r0n9Dv6XnY

"I was standing in the jungle, I was feeling alright...

Then a lion sang to me and smiled:
'Come join us if you so desire.'...

Pretty soon I knew the tune and
We sat and sang under the moon
And the jungle rang in joyful harmony."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swpv4k8YQRw

In that pic w/Paul Simon with the hat and stache and shit he kind of reminds me of... Beefheart?!?!

that's not Paul Simon is it?

Axl is very tiny if he and Paul are the same height

Axl is short, apparently.

Although a police report reprinted in this article says he's 5'9", which isn't that short. Also, I'm going to copy a hilarious block of text from that article, which had me shaking with laughter.

I'd been shuffling around a surprisingly pretty, sunny, newly renovated downtown Lafayette for a couple of days, scraping at whatever I could find. I saw the house where he grew up. I looked at his old yearbook pictures in the public library. Everyone had his or her Axl story. He stole a TV from that house there. Here's where he tried to ride his skateboard on the back of a car and fell and got road rash all up his arm. He came out of this motel with a half-naked woman and some older guys were looking at her and one of 'em threw down a cigarette, not meaning anything by it, but Axl freaked out and flipped 'em off and they beat the crap out of him. Hard to document any of this stuff. Still, enough Wanted On Warrant reports exist for Axl's Indiana years to lend credence to the claim that the city cops and county troopers pretty much felt justified, and technically speaking were justified, in picking him up and hassling him whenever they spotted him out. One doubts he left the house much that they didn't spot him, what with the long, fine, flowing red hair. Must have been sweet to be Axl.

I went to the city cops. They've mellowed along with the town. In fact, they were friendly. They found and processed the negatives of some heretofore unknown mug shots for me, from '80 and '82, the latter of which (the one where he's shirtless) is an anonymous American masterpiece. Then the ladies in the records department rummaged some and came back with this report, which I've never seen mentioned in any of the bios or online or anything. It's written by an officer signing himself "1—4." I took it back to the Holiday Inn and spent the rest of the afternoon reading. Let's call it The Sheidler Incident. It begins:

FULL NAME: BAILEY, WILLIAM BRUCE…

ALIASES: BILL BAILEY…

CURRENT PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT: SELF EMPLOYED—BAND

CHARGE: W[ANTED]O[N]W[ARRANT]BATTERY…

AGE: 18; HEIGHT: 5'9"; WEIGHT: 149

HAIR: RED; EYES: GRN; BUILD: SLENDER; COMPLEXION: FAIR…

Here's how it all went down that day—allegedly. I'm about to cherry-pick the pivotal bits. A little kid named Scott Sheidler was riding his bike in front of an older kid named Dana Gregory's house. He made skid marks on the sidewalk. Dana Gregory ran out, picked Scott up under the armpits, kicked over his bike, and ordered the boy To get on his hands and knees and scrub the skid marks off the sidewalk. The kid went squealing to his old man, Tom Sheidler. Tom Sheidler went to Gregory and asked if it was true, what Scotty had said. Dana Gregory said, "Yes and I'm going to beat the fuck out of you." The mom, Marleen, ran up to the scene and began to shout. Around the same time, Bill Bailey appeared, red, green, slender, and fair. And here I need to let the report take over, if only temporarily, as I can't begin to simulate its succinctness or authority:

M. Sheidler stated that Bailey was also arguing with Sheidler and that he was using the "F" word in front of her kids. M. Sheidler stated that she went up to Bailey and pointed her finger at Bailey and told him not to use the "F" word in front of her kids. M. Sheidler stated that Bailey, who has a splint on his arm, then struck her on the arm and neck with the splint. I looked at M. Sheidler and could see some red marks on her arm and neck which could have been made by being struck.

This matter of which hand it was subsumes the narrative for a stretch. Marleen Sheidler says "with the splint," and little Scott says "with a splint," but Dana Gregory's younger brother Chris 15 says "with the opposite hand that his splint is on" (adding that Bailey struck Sheidler in response to "Sheidler Strikeing [sic]" him). Bill Bailey himself then goes on to say that he "struck M. SHEIDLER in the FACE with his LEFT HAND the hand with out the SPLINT." Once again, this only after "MARLEEN SHEIDLER struck him in the face" (though seconds earlier, by his own admission, he'd told her "to keep her fucking brats at home"). The story ends with a strangely affecting suddenness: "BAILEY stated SHEIDLER then jumped at him and fell on his face, he then left and went home…"

The thing I couldn't stop wondering as I read it over was: Why were they so freaked out about the skid marks? Is making skid marks on the sidewalk a bad thing to do? It makes me think I spent half my childhood inadvertently infuriating my entire neighborhood.

I could totally see someone getting really uptight about that for no good reason.

surprised at how personable and cheery he was on kimmel

i was really hoping he would do the interview in screechy-Axl voice.

rod stewart denies the semen-pumping story.

The book also clears up the urban myth about Stewart once ingesting so much semen that he had to have his stomach pumped. Stewart writes that his former publicist Tony Toon made up the tale after he was fired.

Stewart says that Toon "fed the press a story in which, as a consequence of an evening spent orally servicing a gang of sailors in a gay bar in San Diego, I had been required to check into a hospital emergency room to have my stomach pumped."

He continues: "I have never orally pleasured even a solitary sailor... And I have never had my stomach pumped, either of naval-issue semen nor of any other kind of semen."

Rod wasted a perfect opportunity to use a seaman pun. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given that he threw away all his other opportunities at doing something cool

due to "you're in my heart" i always thought the rumor concerned his affection for manchester united

lol @ "I have never orally pleasured even a solitary sailor"

haha that's awesome

weirdly qualified that denial with 'orally'

Wake up maggie I think I got something to say to you - I have never orally pleasured even a solitary sailor!

omg tyler

really gives "sailing" a new lease of life

I must have heard this song 500 million times, but somehow I just heard for the first time Axl Rose saying "OH MY GOD" at the beginning. How did I miss that?

"either of naval-issue semen nor of any other kind of semen."

Well, uh, thanks for clearing that up, Rod!

What's not clear to me is why you'd need to have your stomach pumped after drinking a gallon of semen anyway. As far as I understand it, it is a perfectly healthy beverage though apparently its consistency is that of warm snot.

maybe you have your stomach pumped for other reasons and thus FIND 1 liter/gallon/hectare of semen in yr belly as a result

what's important is that i am so jealous of rod's way with the ladies that he is gay

I don't really buy the "semen is healthy! drink up, ladies, amirite?" thing

well I try to have 8 glasses a day but I struggle with that

It's full of protein, isn't it? That's why I heard Boy George named his record label 'More Protein', anyway!

The worst variant of the Guinness Diet ever.

http://alecguinness.com/starwars2.jpg

well played!

Damn, should have responded with

Brilliant!

if you suck me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine

oh god

"It's what gives a Jedi his power. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together."

ruined

everything ruined

look you started it

midichlorian necklace

boom

so to speak

look I was fine with the whole conversation until you brought in Alec Guinness

which says an awful lot about me, none of which I'm proud of

oh my distorted smile

it's a sociopsychotic state of bliss

what are you guys talking about

hahahaha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCHQwtiBbc0

guess what i'm doing now

http://www.musicradar.com/rhythm/brain-mantia-talks-guns-n-roses-chicken-coops-helicopters-and-chinese-democracy-556166/6

"We set up all the drums and I said, ‘This is the Guns N Roses album, we need a vibe’ and there was a temple upstairs that people used to do their speeches in. We went up there and it was a mini auditorium. As soon as I put drums up there and hit them I said, ‘Oh s***, this is the vibe’. They ran cords up there and eventually (then Guns guitarist) Bucket(head) set his chicken coop up there and that’s where he recorded. Bucket and I would look at each other and he’d been in the chicken coop with the wire and he brought in hay. We were up there for three years recording."

holy shit @ that twirling drums thing

We did the first show at Rock in Rio. We rehearsed for probably two or three months without Axl. Our first show’s Rock in Rio and I thought, ‘Wait, what’s it going to sound like with Axl? Where is Axl? Oh here’s his helicopter coming in.’

Axl's whole 'play this note for note exactly how it sounds on the recording' is v weird - iirc in that ClassicRockMagazine piece there's like 3 or 4 times where he did that?

it's pretty telling that Axl was obsessed with replacing all the parts from past bandmembers except the Buckethead stuff which he couldn't bear to abandon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW7Z20fJH6I

that is incredible, thank you for sharing that

beautifully looped.

GIMME SOME REGGAE!

Seen worse versions of "Pressure Drop."

haha you're aware of the "Pressure Drop" cover on Izzy's first solo album right?

Ha, I have that album and totally forgot!

Fascinatingly, this appears to be an adaptation of a real event, when Axl demanded reggae in the midst of "Knocking On Heaven's Door" at the Freddy Mercury Tribute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2mzMlHmxYo

I like the looped, loopy version better.

oh yeah Axl said that regularly in "Knockin'" performances on the UYI tour, it's a well known thing. when the track was a radio hit MTV played the Freddie Mercury performance a lot as a standalone video.

So is that looped clip excerpted from a real show? No, right? It's a funny hybrid? Because that doesn't sound like any version of GNR doing the music. Sounds like Axl's demand, then synched to a goofy dance and different music. Though it would be hilarious if that was a straight-up legit clip.

yeah it's a straight loop of the actual audio from about 5 minutes into this performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj0GGjlyHfg

that's really the brilliance of it, that they chopped up GNR's goofy cod reggae in a way that actually sounds dope. i listened to it several times last night and this morning.

Oh, we had it looping the kitchen. My five year old was walking around screeching "gimme some reggae!"

Except it sounded like "gimme Enrique!"

looooooooool awesome

Did you really feel axl rose wanted to be "given" some reggae, or do you think that was sort of just insincere, halfhearted request?

two minutes feels like a tease

yeah it'd be nice if it was 10 minutes or an hour or something but it's probably for the best that i have to actually think about how long i want to get stuck in a GNR reggae timewarp every couple minutes

My wife heard me playing this last night and called out from the other room, "Is he yelling "Give me some Ray J?""

I have to admit that ruined it a little for me.

otoh GIMME SOME REGGAE!

lol for the love of reggae

"Give Me Some Reggae (Dancehall Remix)" featuring Ray J and Enrique Iglesias

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

roots n' culture imo ^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRfB6qTsWI8

Wow, this is like a Sid-era Sex Pistols trainwreck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BFEz-7jd1Y

Slash is operating at like 10% capacity less than everyone else.

And everyone else seems down by 30%.

I was at their first show after that riot. </coolstorybro>

"I was the one who started the riot" is like a small subset of this generation's "I was at Woodstock." I know no less than two people who profess to have been directly involved.

the St. Louis riot got us the sick proshot bootlegs of the Chicago and Indiana shows via an overturned TV truck

damn, I didn't even know that DJ Ashba and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal left. what is happening to this band?

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/08/axl-rose-and-slash-are-friends-again/

posting this for people who don't care to read the other article.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/08/axl-rose-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles/

Daren Ashba owns two corporations, Ashba Media, Inc. which handles the art side of things and Ashbaland, Inc. which handles the music side of things.

i'm kind of jealous of DJ Ashba, tbh

gimme some reggae