Guns n Roses: Critical Rehab

izzy did release a statement via duff at least: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/04/izzy_stradlin_rock_hall_of_fa.php

I want a t-shirt that read "Izzy don't Tweet, etc."

Izzy was the soul of that band.

Are there any bands where the "soul" isn't the quiet one?

Happy Mondays?

yeah, the ones where they're not called that because they're also the "face" or the "voice" etc. of the band (xpost)

Black Flag (Chuck Dukowski)

Keith is the soul of the Stones, no? I mean, you could claim Charlie, but I don't think he's the soul of the band. Just, simply by being the quietest, the most tolerable.

he means shooting up, not assaulting

Yeah, but...shooting up with a hatpin?

Christgau is old. That's probably how they talked about it in the '20s.

had to google "hatpin". figured he meant "rolling pin" or something.

that line is as nasty as any GnR misogynistic lyrics, kudos Dean of Rock Criticism

that review pretty much sums up why i've always disliked christgau's writing -- glib jokes posing as insights, un-parseable borderline gibberish that wouldn't pass muster on an early manic street preachers single, and that creepy seen-it-all attitude he affects sometimes ('dicking her ass before you smack up with her hatpin' being an especially repulsive example).

that line is as nasty as any GnR misogynistic lyrics

it's not even as nasty as the one xgau himself cites in the same paragraph imo

no kidding

well, "dicking her ass" is in reference to the line from "it's so easy" he later quotes: "turn around bitch, i've got a use for you". xgau's language is rather gross, but no more so than what he's paraphrasing. and "smack up with her hatpin" may sound risibly archaic in the here and now, but it probably made more sense a quarter century ago.

I don't read Xgau regularly because life is too short for that, so I don't really know if there is a pattern of callous hatred in his writing that that line falls into, but 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.

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

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!