Vincent Vega

We've seen over the past year and a half an increasing amount of frustration, disappointment and exasperation coming from Bumblefoot over the status of GN'R. He's been very vocal and insistent about his desire to have the band record new material, he's been consistently saying that the band hasn't sat in the same room and written as a unit in four years; while each band member has written their own things, there's been no real work and no real collaboration, and he's been getting more and more insistent and disappointed, because he feels the band is great and now is the time to record and catch the band while the "iron is hot" as he said in an interview two days ago. He sounded very disappointed when he said GN'R is going to play another round of shows at the end of the year.

The way he's talking, his sense of frustration and feeling sort of let down and exasperated reminds me in many ways of the way Slash and Duff talked toward the end of their tenures.

It makes me wonder, and want to ask you: How long do you think it will be until Bumblefoot gets tired of the inactivity and quits?

How long do you think till BBF quits?

Ron seems pissed.

The situation is very bizarre. The band are desperate to record, the fans are desperate to hear new music... so what's stopping Axl???

Writer's block?

Lack of passion?

Laziness?

Lack of something meaningful to say/write a songabout?

Emotional exhaustion from the stress of CD?

Not wanting to relive the CD experience?

Label issues--Label not willing to fund or promote next album unless certain conditions of theirs are met, which Axl doesn't like?

Simply not giving a fuck?

Some combo of the above?

Everyone talks about all the filler on the UYI set...But what would you say are the filler tracks?

I'd love to see everyone list of UYI filler tracks and see how many songs are agreed on by separate posters as filler.

Punk shouldnt be a genre

I think punk rock deserves its own fashion line- which really is what it was all about anyway, don't you think? It gave kids who couldn't play their instruments a reason to dress up.

Obvious Miser is too obvious.

No, obvious cupcake is obvious. I'm not that clever. I'd say it more bluntly like, "Punk rock was the genre of choice for people who couldn't play music." I don't think it was a fashion thing because all I know about Punk fashion is the mohawk, leather and chains. But that's a part of a lot of scenes, and the Mohawk was an Indian thing.

Yes. The Axl-nutters seem to forget that some of us like hook-laden guitar riffs, raw production, bluesy solos and basic Rock N' Roll lyrics. Some of us are not so keen on overdubs, over-production and lyrics about Stephanie Seymour. Is this so surprising consideirng Appetite itself was a raw rock n' roll record?

+1

Pawnshop Guitars = Ain't Life Grand > It's Five O' Clock Somewhere > Contraband > Chinese Democracy.> Libertad.

I'd like an actual, honest, genuine discussion and debate on this.

Just a question for speculation here.

Listen to Gilby's solo album--some of it is really pretty, really beautiful melodies, like Johanna's Chopper (which has a similar Beatle-esque quality to Catcher, almost), or fun stuff like Skin & Bones, which could've worked like a fun Izzy or Lies sort of number if done by GN'R. Or take Black, could've been a good mid 90s style GN'R song, same with Tijuana Jail and Cure Me or Kill Me....His solo songs had a base that sounded a lot like GN'R even on it's own.

I'll just never understand why Axl didn't even give him a CHANCE.

After resigning office in disgrace and facing public scorn in August 1974, Richard Nixon immediately began a gradual but shrewd job of rehabilitating his standing with the public, and by the time of his death nearly 20 years later, he was recognized as a respected elder statesmen, a master of foreign policy who had advised and given counsel to every President after him, rather than disgraced crook. He used the media--the same media he'd waged war on and hated earlier--to clean up his image over time and make him more respected again.

Now, for the last 20 years, Axl, like Nixon, has waged a paranoid war on the media and press in general; He and his circle, like Nixon and his circle, have tended to view the media (and even the fans at times) as the enemy. In the public eye, outside of the forums, Axl is viewed as a washed up rock star at best, and at worst as an egomaniac, self centered prima donna who destroyed Guns N' Roses by either "firing" Slash and co. or just taking over the band (this is the general public's POV, not mine). He's seen as a joke by those who see the band nowadays, a freaky guy who is a recluse who's had a lot of plastic surgery, who can't sing anymore (This view of him was shaped by the 2002 VMAs). Chinese Democracy is either unknown of, or thought of as "Not Guns N' Roses" by the mainstream public generally. He's thought of as a villain of sorts.

Now, the question is, at this point, can Axl, like Nixon, redeem himself? Can he rehabilitate his public image and gain back the respect and relevance he once had? Or has he long past the point of no return in terms of public standing?

^^^ Most of that is total shit.

Tough crowd.

Maybe a bit, but I don't think so.

To me, Axl is at his best when his lyrics come across as almost spontaneous. Some of the shit he sings on albums, you can imagine him spewing during a rant. Good Axl is cocky and aggressive and unpredictable and volatile and insecure and paranoid, and his standout lyrics bring all of these characteristics together. CD is filled with the most tired, bland imagery, phrasing and rhyme schemes. It rings completely hollow. At bottom, it feels like Axl tried way too hard to be profound and poetic, and he failed miserably.

I think he summed it up perfectly in Don't Damn Me. While not one of GN'R's best songs overall, I think it is one of his best lyrically.

I think given Axl's background (being raised in an Evangelical Christian sort of environment, his supposedly being anally raped by his father as a child; his probable experiences when he served 3 months in jail as a young man; the experience he spoke of, about nearly being raped when he first came to LA), his well known homophobia (Not just in OIAM, he said anti-gay things in concerts in the 80s, proclaimed himself "pro-heterosexual" and expressed homophobia in his rant against Madison), his fashion choices (fur coats, boas, tight biker shorts--all elements of very gay fashion), him being seen at gay bars, and his alleged anal rape of Erin, I think this is actually an interesting topic.

The question you asked is if the song is about repressed homosexuality. What does any of this have to do with the song?

I'm going to do a lyrical interpretation line by line soon.

I think given Axl's background (being raised in an Evangelical Christian sort of environment, his supposedly being anally raped by his father as a child; his probable experiences when he served 3 months in jail as a young man; the experience he spoke of, about nearly being raped when he first came to LA), his well known homophobia (Not just in OIAM, he said anti-gay things in concerts in the 80s, proclaimed himself "pro-heterosexual" and expressed homophobia in his rant against Madison), his fashion choices (fur coats, boas, tight biker shorts--all elements of very gay fashion), him being seen at gay bars, and his alleged anal rape of Erin, I think this is actually an interesting topic.

I mean, she's managing Guns N' Fucking Roses! What do you think?

I always thought of punk as more of a fashion statement than anything else anyway. To punk bands- instruments were just another fashion accessory. Real punk bands couldn't play and if they could play then they sure as hell weren't punk. I always enjoyed the sonic experience of music too much to really get into punk.

Fashion and art was a part of it, but the beauty of it was anyone could go on a stage and not be great at their instruments, but they better make up for it in heart and delivery.

Rock music had become aloof and seen from a distance in stadiums, and I think one of the things that resonated with punk was breaking barriers down, audience and band being one and the same, but it was also about that shared contempt for authority figures trying to tell you how to live your life and people who demand respect without earning it.

Basically - we're all going to be okay in the end and they're the ones who are fucked up in the head.

Back then it was all meant for a specific young age group, but I don't see why senior citizens can't be punk rock. I can't think of a more disenfranchised group ignored by society.

Um, that sounds like something rock music has stood for since the 50s when it first came around into mainstream popularity, not some concept that just started with Sid Vicious and Johnny Thunders. That's been the appeal of rock since it began. So, again, what did Punk introduce that was really new? Punk to me, is by and large, nothing more than a rehash of '50s raw rock in sound, with 60s protest style lyrics. Not much else.

But when you're talking about the roots of rock, you're talking about a short period in the 50s and it was dismantled after '58.

The big difference between the 50s and the 70s was the cynicism that developed.

And there was a return to roots rock in the late 60s/early 70s. Not all that long before Punk.

I mean what was, 68, that the Stones had Street Fighting Man, CCR had Fortunate Son etc.

It's not like Rock had become this bloated, self indulgent monster by 1976. Prog rock and some elements of the Glam scene--yes., and by 1976 the Stones had become jet set rockstars and Keith was nodding out half the time, so they stopped being truly relevant as a counter cultural force. But Hard Rock overall? No, I don't believe it became as staid as you or others might say. You still had a lot of shocking shit going on that scared parents. I mean Aerosmith hit their peak of popularity around '76/'77 and they weren't parent friendly or removed, for example. Alice Cooper was still hitting it out of the park and shocking people.

Basically, Punk was doing what all the roots rock records of the late 60s/early 70s did, just amped up with crappy production values. Even the '50s rock had damn good production for it's time. Punk was basically "You can sound like crap and still be great". I don't really agree with that aesthetic or ideal.

Lol this topic makes no sense for the reason pointed out. 22nd and 23rd ANNIVERSARIES?!?! HAZAAH!

SLURRRRPPPPPPPP

This forum would proclaim him a god just look at Dizzy and his mean keyboard.

Did you know it was Dizzy, and not Mike Clink, who produced the UYI records? He deviously stole into the studio at night, and put his keyboard parts and organ parts in the without anyone knowing. Slash was horried when he found out but Axl told him "Take it, bitch" at gunpoint. Thus why Dizzy's keyboard parts are much louder in the mix of the UYI albums than Slash's guitars. On most songs you can't even hear Slash's guitar, all you hear are Dizzy's keyboards and Matt's drums, without the 1920s Jazz Age Swing that Steven (GN'R's MVP) brought to the band.

There has been, and will be, a lot of anniversaries this year:

June 5th 1985--Twenty eight years ago on June 5th 1985, Guns N' Roses performed their first show with the lineup of Axl, Slash, Izzy, Duff and Steven.

April 7th 1990--23 years ago, on April 7th 1990, the AFD/Lies lineup of Axl, Slash, Izzy, Duff, and Steven performed their last show together.

July 11th 1990 - Steven Adler is fired from Guns N' Roses.

January 20th 1991--22 years ago on this date, the UYI lineup of Axl/Slash/Izzy/Duff/Matt/Dizzy perform their first show.

August 31st 1991 -- 22 years ago on this date, the UYI lineup of Axl/Slash/Izzy/Duff/Matt/Dizzy perform their last show.

November 7th 1991-- Izzy stradlin announces his departure from Guns N' Roses.

December 5th 1991-- 22 years ago on this date, the UYI Tour/TSI lineup of Axl/Slash/Gilby/Matt/Dizzy perform their first show.

July 17th 1993 -- 20 years ago on this date, Axl, Slash, Duff and Matt perform their last show ever together as Guns N' Roses in Argentina.

November 23rd 1993- 20 years ago on this date, the first Guns N' Roses album to feature Gilby, and the last to feature Axl, Slash, Duff and Matt, The Spaghetti Incident, is released.

December 15th 1994-- Sympathy for the Devil, the last song by the classic era lineup of Guns N' Roses, is released as a single.

December 31st 1995 -- Axl dissolves the original Guns N' Roses as a legal entity and creates a new band called Guns N' Roses, which Slash, Duff, and Matt are invited to join as employees on salary. Slash refuses to join as an employee, but remains an unofficial member of the band.

October 31st 1996 - Axl announces the official and final departure of Slash from Guns N' Roses.

August 1997 - Duff resigns from Guns N' Roses, leaving Axl as the sole remaining founding member of the band.

The Devolution of Guns N Roses:

Fixed.

But GN'R can't have evolved since it died in August 1997 when Duff quit and Axl was left as the original remaining member.

R.I.P. Guns N' Roses (June 6th 1985-August 1997)

He did co-write The Garden and Yesterdays. Now AFD purists must hate those songs.

If Duff had stayed with Axl after 1997 instead of quitting, and he, Dizzy and Axl were the only remaining UYI era members, do you think Duff would get hate and scorn the same way Dizzy does, for sticking with Axl? Like, if the lineup at Rio 2001 had been Axl/Bucket/Robin/Paul/Duff/Brain/Dizzy/Chris, would Duff be hated like Dizzy is for taking Axl's side; would he be thought of as a "traitor" to real GN'R?

Beta has done more then any of you losers.

If you mean done more to tear down and disgrace the GNR name as well as Axl's career then you are correct.

Her spawn, Del James, and Jarmo have certainly helped in that effort, but Beta is certainly the leader of their gang.

We should start referring to the Lebeis Family, Del and Jarmo as the Unholy Trinity of GNR's demise.

What has Del done, though? Del is just kind of....there.

I've never seen Del do anything, good or bad as far as GN'R is concerned, since the UYI days.

The hate for Beta, Fermanager and Jarmo is justified, but with Del it just seems to be he's hated because he chose Axl's side instead of Slash, same with Dizzy. Del was around from the time the band first began and the (real) band trusted him enough to be their biographer and in house historian. He was going to write a (band approved) biography of GN'R which was supposed to come out in 1995 but like a lot of things that got derailed because of GN'R disintegrating.

I hate the revisionism. If KOHD had come out and you didn't know they'd changed drummers, you wouldn't have noticed. Civil War sounds like it's actually done by Matt as it is. And of course a fucking rocker is going to have an "edge" that a ballad doesn't. All this Steven Adler fan wanking, spunk all over his blonde mane revisionism is such shit.

I always thought of punk as more of a fashion statement than anything else anyway. To punk bands- instruments were just another fashion accessory. Real punk bands couldn't play and if they could play then they sure as hell weren't punk. I always enjoyed the sonic experience of music too much to really get into punk.

Fashion and art was a part of it, but the beauty of it was anyone could go on a stage and not be great at their instruments, but they better make up for it in heart and delivery.

Rock music had become aloof and seen from a distance in stadiums, and I think one of the things that resonated with punk was breaking barriers down, audience and band being one and the same, but it was also about that shared contempt for authority figures trying to tell you how to live your life and people who demand respect without earning it.

Basically - we're all going to be okay in the end and they're the ones who are fucked up in the head.

Back then it was all meant for a specific young age group, but I don't see why senior citizens can't be punk rock. I can't think of a more disenfranchised group ignored by society.

Um, that sounds like something rock music has stood for since the 50s when it first came around into mainstream popularity, not some concept that just started with Sid Vicious and Johnny Thunders. That's been the appeal of rock since it began. So, again, what did Punk introduce that was really new? Punk to me, is by and large, nothing more than a rehash of '50s raw rock in sound, with 60s protest style lyrics. Not much else.

You're not very intelligent are you Miser? He said that Rock music became remote and aloof and so Punk bought it back to where it came from, where in that is there a mention of something new? Whats new was another generation were doing it with a different style and a different attitude and approach because times and circumstance and situation was different.

Thats why it's called Punk......ROCK Believe it or not genius the two are related Punk is/was a chapter in the history of rock n roll. Or rather it's evolution.

But while we're here, punk took their thing further in less time and branched out a great deal further out.

Yeah, the part I was responding to was more the "one of the things that resonated with punk was breaking barriers down, audience and band being one and the same, but it was also about that shared contempt for authority figures trying to tell you how to live your life and people who demand respect without earning it." part more than anything else.

You and other punk fans act like it was the most innovative thing ever and like it's the best thing since sliced bread hence my comment about it really not bringing all that much new to the table.

Of course they're related. It's basically the bastard son of 60s garage and surf rock with other elements thrown in, some pop in there.

Punk took it "further"...Further than all the shit in the 60s? I disagree. A lot of the protest shit and Dylan and Dylan inspired stuff in the '60s was just as anti-Authoritarian as any punk song. "in less time"? Of course, because they had the benefit of coming around when they did, in the middle-late 70s, when a lot of barriers had already been broken done, making it much easier for countercultural shit to come in and shake things up at a quicker pace. The Stones couldn't come out with "Street Fighting Man" as their first song in 1962 because the time wasn't right for such a thing, and barriers were still all up. Punk had the "benefit" of the lies of Vietnam and Watergate and inner city poverty and whatnot to make for an audience ready to hear yet more anti-authority stuff, with an even more angry edge, because people were angrier and more jaded in 1975 than they were in 1965 or 1967 and had more to be cynical and jaded about. Basically Punk just built on and added to what the guys in the 50s, 60s laid down....To me Punk Rock isn't this innovative end all-be all that is the best thing ever...It's just another branch of rock, same as Prog Rock or Art Rock or any other subgenre.

What I reject is the notion that Punk was some golden god, sort of sacred cow that was the last great thing in rock music or the father of everything modern or whatever.

I always thought of punk as more of a fashion statement than anything else anyway. To punk bands- instruments were just another fashion accessory. Real punk bands couldn't play and if they could play then they sure as hell weren't punk. I always enjoyed the sonic experience of music too much to really get into punk.

Fashion and art was a part of it, but the beauty of it was anyone could go on a stage and not be great at their instruments, but they better make up for it in heart and delivery.

Rock music had become aloof and seen from a distance in stadiums, and I think one of the things that resonated with punk was breaking barriers down, audience and band being one and the same, but it was also about that shared contempt for authority figures trying to tell you how to live your life and people who demand respect without earning it.

Basically - we're all going to be okay in the end and they're the ones who are fucked up in the head.

Back then it was all meant for a specific young age group, but I don't see why senior citizens can't be punk rock. I can't think of a more disenfranchised group ignored by society.

Um, that sounds like something rock music has stood for since the 50s when it first came around into mainstream popularity, not some concept that just started with Sid Vicious and Johnny Thunders. That's been the appeal of rock since it began. So, again, what did Punk introduce that was really new? Punk to me, is by and large, nothing more than a rehash of '50s raw rock in sound, with 60s protest style lyrics. Not much else.

I do think it helped GN'R in the fight against Grunge, at least.

What I mean is: If GN'R had released AFD II in 1990 or 1991, first of all, people would feel they're a one trick pony. Capable of only the same kind of record every time, like AC/DC. It would've been a hit but...But GN'R wouldn't have been recognized as not only being this cool rock band, but also an immensely talented band that could conquer any genre really. And then with Grunge rolling out the next year in full force, GN'R would've TRULY looked like dinosaurs if they'd done another '80s-esque Sleaze Rock record. They would've been sidelined along with Skid Row and Great White etc.

While AFD would always have been lauded as a great album, GN'R the band would not have been as beloved or as lauded as they were if their next album was just a carbon copy of the first. In releasing the UYIs, they showed the world they were not simply a more aggressivre Motley Crue or a less polished Skid Row; that they could produce classic records on par with the best hard rock ever and that they were the true heirs to the Stones/Aerosmith/Led Zeppelin throne.

While commercially, ANY album by GN'R in 1991 probably would've been huge, I think the whole fact that it was well known that the next album would be a departure--Axl and others had talked for a while how the next album was going to be very different--and then that it was going to be TWO albums (four LPs) at once...Stunned and shocked people and got them even more hyped and excited. Imagine it's 1991 and your favorite band is releasing two whole new records on the same day after a 3 year wait....And not only are those albums going to be great, they're also going to be experimental and take the band places you didn't even think they were capable of going!

From an artistic, musical standpoint, the UYIs are what cemented GN'R's greatness and potential for further greatness, not so much AFD.

I mean it's a testament to how well received the new sound was, that in the summer of 1992 at the height of the Grunge era, November Rain hit #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and that it's video dominated all of 1992, despite Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Grunge in general. People loved this new sound. The ONLY song GN'R released that was more successful than NR was SCOM.