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

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