Guns n Roses: Critical Rehab

xgau needs to go into critical rehab

He did suggest that Paxil was why Norah Jones didn't come...

I looked that up and that line is drowning in backpedalling and pre-emptive context setting before he even wrote it

as a standalone example it looks like it's taking all the repulsive hatred of the band's lyrics and reflecting it back at them.

that seems pretty plainly the idea, you don't just stumble onto a line like that without thinking "how can I make this sound really gross and horrible, like the record I'm writing about"

ok ok you guys win that point but he still sux

Except that GNR is gross in the name of art. What's Xgau's excuse?

you're joking right

Any critic who writes something other than the one-sheet is special in my book, so I like him. He want to embody what he reviews as much as he wants to write about it.

I'm joking right, left, all over this place. It's so easy.

did/could xgau know at the time that axl did in fact (try to?) anally rape stephanie seymour? and probably do drugs with her? idk it's what it reminded me of

wait what

did that come out in court documents or something

Xgau could just sense it.

i remember it from one of those early 00s era "so wtf is axl up to these days anyway" stories rolling stone did! court documents i believe yeah.

stephanie's story was that axl believed that both her and her sister were reincarnations of a pair of witches that were enemies of axl in a previous life and so he had to possess and destroy them both.

iirc.

loooool

off to find this article

hmm maybe not, this Rolling Stone site is total garbage

does SF still have a public library system

RS's site is pretty awful.

stephanie's story was that axl believed that both her and her sister were reincarnations of a pair of witches that were enemies of axl in a previous life and so he had to possess and destroy them both.

Maybe you dreamed this?

well yes, since then

Daniel Johnston should be GNR new frontman. Also Daniel Johnston should marry Stephanie Seymour.

from Wikipedia:

In August 1993, Rose filed a lawsuit against Seymour, claiming that she had "kicked and grabbed" him during a 1992 Christmas party at their Malibu home, and that she refused to return more than $100,000 worth of jewelry he had given her as gifts.[59] Seymour counter-sued in October, contending that Rose—angry because she had held the party after he had wanted to cancel it—had slapped and punched her and kicked her down a flight of stairs. She admitted to grabbing his testicles as a defensive measure.[59]
After being subpoenaed to testify during Seymour's case, Everly filed her own lawsuit in March 1994, accusing Rose of physical and emotional assault and sexual battery.[8][59] Everly testified that throughout their four-and-a-half-year relationship she suffered regular beatings that at times left her hospitalized.[59] In her sworn deposition, she stated that Rose—who was an adherent of past life regression therapy—believed that she and Seymour had been sisters in a past life and were now trying to kill him.[8] Rose had allegedly also told her that he and Everly had been Native Americans in another past life and that Everly had killed their children, and that's why he treated her poorly in this life.[8]

footnote 8 leads here

can't find any online support for the idea that axl tried to rape seymour. he did rape (or try to rape, i don't know the details) a previous girlfriend, erin everly. maybe that's where this story comes from?

yeah ok i got the wrong person. third page:

In her own sworn deposition, Erin claimed Axl sexually assaulted her, describing in shocking detail one occasion when he first ordered her to take off a swimsuit she was wearing, tied her hands to her ankles from behind, put masking tape over her mouth and a bandanna over her eyes, then led her, naked, into a closet, where he left her bound and gagged for hours. She said that at one point she could hear Axl talking in the next room to a mutual friend of hers, oblivious to her plight.
When Axl finally allowed Erin to leave the closet, she said, he picked her up and placed her face down on a convertible bed. He then, “forced himself on me anally really hard. Really hard.”
“Were you screaming?” she was asked.
“Yes.”
“How long did that last?”
“I don't remember.”
“What happened when it was over?”
“He took it out and stuck it in my mouth.”
Erin also testified that Axl believed she and Seymour had been sisters in a past life and were now “try¬ing to kill him.” Axl had also told her “that in a past life we were Indians and that I killed our children, and that's why he was so mean to me in this life.” Even more ludicrous, Erin claimed that Axl told her “he was possessed” by the spirit of “John Bonham”, the notoriously fiery Led Zeppelin drummer who had died in his sleep in 1980 after drinking himself unconscious. She also claimed Axl had once removed all the doors in her apartment in order to keep an eye on her wherever she went.
It also emerged that at one point while they were married, Axl had been “ripped off” when he tried to perform some form of exorcism, in order to cleanse the marriage of its bad energies. “Mainly it involved getting some kind of herbal wrap,” a clearly embarrassed Axl testified. Some “work on my skin” for which he said he was charged $72,000. “I ended up getting ripped off for a lot of money in the long run.”

Jesus

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XlNNqOC73gI/TaqVlflGMaI/AAAAAAAABCE/eOrOAS1m-eM/s1600/liq.jpeg

this is what the internet is all about amirite

Rose refused to be interviewed about Everly's accusations, but in court papers he claims that the 5'6", 104-lb. Everly provoked him—Rose is 5'9", 145 lbs.—and that his actions were purely in self-defense.

smdh

xp - yeah, in a way. been eye-opening. i remembered that "one in a million" had lines about n-----s, immigrants and faggots, but not how fully it committed itself to its bigotry. i remembered that there were stories of domestic violence and crazy drug behavior around axl, but not the awful details. great to be able to dig up and integrate all this stuff in one place, along with stuff like that xgau review.

But as Axl added: “People like to call me paranoid. It has nothing to do with paranoia; it was to do with reality… Slash chose not to be here over control issues. Now people can say 'Well, Axl, you're after control of the band too'. You're damn skippy.'

every interview i've ever read with axl consists of him talking about how much 'pressure' he's under and spouting a lot of psychobabble about his need for 'control.' weird contrast with what we know of what he's actually like when he's not being interviewed.

Dave Quakenbush, vocalist with LA punk band The Vandals and a guest at the 1999 Halloween party, recalls Axl “wearing a dinosaur outfit. When some kids approached him and asked if he was Barney the Dinosaur, he said 'Nah! Barney's a fag!' Then he stopped himself and said, 'Oh, uh, I mean Barney's a pussy'.”

progress!

ha

Occasionally, a small ray of light would illuminate the gloom. In April 1997, basketball superstar Shaquille O'Neal found himself recording in an adjacent studio and decided to stick his head around the door and see what Axl and the boys were up to - and ended up rapping with them. “They asked me to join them,” Shaq recalls, so I started freestylin' over their track. It was the first time I ever performed with a rock group, and it felt good.”

can't believe this track didn't make the cut for Chinese Democracy

Rose is 5'9", 145 lbs.

Wow, I'm 5'7" and weigh 145. No wonder Axl is getting beat up.

I just had an amazing thought; what if it had been Bob Stinson in GNR instead of Tommy? Whoa.

can't believe this track didn't make the cut for Chinese Democracy

or You Can't Stop The Reign

It hit me last night as I was settling down to sleep: maybe "hatpin" is a dig on Slash.

axl's a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a male right? obv armchair psych but i'd imagine that's what a lot of his abusive behavior and bullshit talk is about

Yeah I remember something about his biological dad abusing him as a kid, iirc

He's not off the hook for how he's treated ppl by any means, but ultimately william axl rose is an american tragedy

i wonder if he got kicked out of his first band

axl really is neck-and-neck with mj as far as becoming the charles foster kane/howard hughes figure of their generation of pop stars

Hardly. If you read or see recent interviews with him, he is clearly lucid and reasonable. Just bears a lot of grudges.

well obviously he hasn't played out his full arc yet like mj, there's still more looniness to come

Dunno, he's already 50! I think if he hasn't hit MJ level craziness yet, but has already run the gauntlet of extreme fame and extreme wealth several times over, I think he'll be OK. I don't think he's a recluse. He just keeps odd hours, And aside from the people people suing him, most seem to say good things about the guy these days.

Like I maybe said in another thread, I saw the band in a club a few weeks ago. In the (reasonable, actually) wait for the group to go on, obviously people were nervous and chatty. This one guy starts talking about his girlfriend, who works in a nice hotel that Axl stayed in earlier this year. He gets this look in his eye, and I think, OK, here comes the juicy gossip! So the guy kind of looks around, lowers his voice, and says that when Axl stayed there, someone called the front desk and had them send up ... an elliptical machine! OMG, rock stars, WTF?! Anyway, that's where we are in Axl-ville. Elliptical machines.

i'm just saying, the lana del rey chapter of his story just started, i'm not going to say it's time to roll credits just yet

Elliptical Games

I'm not sure why, but I want to root for Axl Rose. I like him even though everything in me suggests that I should not.

that bio linked upthread is utterly insane reading, if it isn't already clear