HubbaBubba

Sinatra would die before he sang with Axl Rose, Sinatra was a mob connected Italian American born in 1915, you really think he's gonna get onstage with a guy known for wearing tight cycling shorts and arseless chaps, singing in a high pitched voice, with fuckin' nipple piercings?

That's funny cos he felt quite entitled to offer friendly advice to George Michael in that open letter back in 1990, and he kinda follows through on the assless chaps.

Though he's not the principle-free whore that Elton John became, I'm pretty sure Sinatra would've jumped at the chance to look relevant again no matter what his mob friends thought. Axl was the hottest shit in town around that time.

I would still like to know what happened with the cancelled tour in 2002??? One of three things the promoter pulled the plug, Axl pulled the plug or a lawsuit or one that was on going an injunction to not use the GNR name and granted by a judge. I lean toward an injunction granted because Axl hardly ever talks about court cases and anytime it has been brought up he says he can't talk about it which makes me think there was a gag order.

This is just me thinking out loud.

Axl pulled a few no shows and to prevent further rioting they pulled the plug...that's my understanding. I don't believe it was outside influences trying to shut axl down, I think he flushed it down the can all by himself.

For the uninitiated Axl played to half-empty arenas across America in his hockey jerseys, then went out clubbing in NYC after what was a triumphant gig and the crowning moment of the come-back tour, only to be turned away from a manhattan nightclub because he was wearing fur. Were they fucking serious, this is Axl Rose?! Yes they were apparently, and it did not go down well at all. He stormed off in a rage, and then never showed up in Philly. Riot ensued.

Was this story every verified by another witness? It's one of my absolute faves!

I'm starting to question why I bother reading this forum these days.

Late to the party eh?

For rawness, Rosie gets it. It's the sound of a genuine band about to go stratospheric showing respect to their roots. Nice boys too.

Ironically, from the same era, jj flash is a terrible cover. It sounds like Poison doing the stones and is the only original guns song I truly think is weak as piss.

Down on the farm is unforgivably bad, so much so that it can't even be saved by that amazingly thick guitar sound. It's one of the many milestones that mark Axl's total loss of perspective in that period.

And the dirty secret? Sympathy for the devil. That song just tumbles along, it sounds fucking killer from start to finish. Can I admit I like it better then the original? And that's despite the fact that Axl can't pronounce some of the words properly (presumably because he doesn't know them!) despite having what must've been dozens of takes.

What's the point of writing and recording music as a band if you aren't going to share that music with your fans?

Everybody from Axl to Beta to band members have talked about there being a bunch more music.

Even if Axl has lost his creative juices and doesn't want to write, record and release new music, then why not just release the rest of the CD songs?

Axl and Beta, for the love of all that is good in the world, please think about Axl's millions of fans. The ones who paid for that beautiful mansion you guys live in!!!! Forget about the feuds, the people you think are "haters" and think about the MILLION of Axl Rose and GnR supporters - those are the important people, not the haters!!! Go back and remember what happened between 1987-1991 when you release 3.5 albums worth of material and were the BIGGEST band in the world. Releasing music is a "thank you" and a treat for your FANS. Not releasing music........who wins in that situation? Nobody.

Let's make 2015 be a year for the fans!!!

For the status quo to be maintained, it's important for TB to perpetuate the notion that the fans are the enemy. And ironically these forums, full of rabidly frustrated fanatics as they are, help with that.

The truth of course is that the masses, or the millions as you put it, simply don't care anymore. If not the imagination, it's the nostalgia of these part-time fans that guns needs to harness to be huge again.

With things as they are (unprofessional management with clear conflict of interest, irreconcilable differences with original members, needless perpetuation of ancient grudges) there is only a vanishingly small chance that this will occur.

Axl is selling property

that was 14 years ago...

well, I never made an album myself, but I wonder, if SO MANY songs are already done, what stops them to record it? Is that so hard a task??? I really think Axl has given up because no recordlabel is interested...or he is not interested....man o man...what drama....it goes on forever and ever, so many members saying that MAYBE there will be a new album...please stop that shit and only give us an update about the releasedate

I'm trying to illustrate Axl's indifference to new music. Unlike you, I have no up-to-date information on his property portfolio. Maybe you'd like to fill me in on his cable channel preferences too. And how's his cellar these days?

No one is wanking in the studio (other than dj). Axl is drinking wine, selling property, and watching cable.

The ''artistic integrity" brigade have been eating their words for quite a few years now.

It's almost certainly indifference. Everything Axl has done in the last few years reeks of it.

Why go to the effort of completing a new album when the real cash is still in touring their classic debut? And this only gets more true with every passing year.

Oh no not wierdy beardy, dude who I'm reasonably sure drives my bus, and punk rock pioneer not a soul had heard of until guns. Anything but the big three.

That list is kinda self-defeating. None of those additions, cheesy as they are, ruin the songs. My world is a total clown show (but Axl blames slash for letting him do that one!).

I honestly think the effects didn't intrude that much on the music. At what points specifically do you think it sounds like a clown show?

Rod Stewart is indeed a tit.

The guns vs Dylan thing is crazy but true, to the extent that I got it from a guns documentary.

If it took a year of tinkering to get the illusions out, it was worth it and IMHO didn't ruin the album.

I think it's something each person has to take in their own special way.

Ha! Timing is everything!

I quite enjoy those little textures on the illusions, but then again I did grow up with them.

Whether Axl would admit to it or not, I think tinkering with the material was probably a way of putting off the day of judgement as much as anything else. But this is totally understandable. After Appetite, who wouldn't feel the weight of expectation? This was just Axl's way of dealing with it, and it's not even that unusual a reaction to that degree of pressure. I remember reading somewhere that by the end if the illusions album cycle guns had sold more records in four or so years than Dylan had in his whole career. That's insane!

The real problem came by the time he reached CD. By this stage he was surrounded only by yes-men, and artistic input was given within an employee-boss framework.

And with the success of the previous albums plus time passing, the rising balloon of expectation he was hanging on to had gone too high. It was way too late to think of letting go. He knew it, we knew it, and the critics knew it.

So what could he do? Keep hitting those same old buttons in he hope it would see him through again. And then have the over-egged result prized out of your reluctant grasp by an industry kingpin & manipulator, who knew you'd never in a million years hand it over willingly.

And the end result largely (and I think quite fairly) reflected all of this - to see that you only need to listen to the title track, which simultaneously manages to be spectacularly complex in its layering and texturing, but at its heart still hopelessly bland. But most disappointingly of all for long-standing guns fans like me, it sounds suspiciously like a second-rate Jungle rip-off. A deliberate one. And that is a tough thing to hear.

It's good that despite the irreconcilable differences, almost everyone in this thread has an opinion that's interesting to read.

Nope, still seems like nonsense.

If guns lacked the talent or originality their fans 'wished they had', then why did those fans get interested in the first place.

Appetite was raw but it was their signature sound, something they could've & did capture in subsequent releases.

The issue was with evolution. Axl wanted the band to evolve in a particular way, and I think it's reasonable to say that none of the other band members were ever completely on board with it. It boils down to influences. Slash was rocks and Axl was elton.

You can bet every cent that slash would've preferred axl to be stage-diving and spinning the mic, rather than sitting at a grand piano with a fucking cigarette holder.

But that conflict is partly what made it all so interesting.

How the fuck did gnr benefit from these hideous videos beyond the pecuniary? They drew in a load of teeny bopper girls and housewives and made gnr look like egotistical wash outs at exactly the same moment that grunge was mounting its onslaught. Imagine if they retained their tough punk rock credibility when Nirvana smashed the hair bands into smithereens? We might be talking about GN'R as, pre-grunge, if they retained the Appetite sound and image rather than allow Axl to masturbate himself silly, in the studio, and on celluloid. Instead, GNR were a dinosaur rock star act which, deserved destruction.

No we wouldn't, they'd've been a one trick pony desperately trying to replicate the rawness of their original sound, i think the truth of the matter is that GnR didn't have the talent, the inclination or the originality to be the sort of band that their fans wish they were.

This dude's gone full retard. It's hard to know where to start.

Actually I've never found NR video "corny" or bad. It was always fine for me. Now, Don't Cry video, thats the other story. This may be the dumbest music video I've ever seen.

Well that's a perfectly legit opinion but it sets you apart from Axl who these days thinks those videos are kinda corny.

By the rationale of the OP this can only be interpreted as Axl being passive-aggressive towards himself. What a bastard!

November Rain is the one based on the short story by Del James. It says that in the video I think .

I guess Slash never read the book!

What book would that be? The one with the immensely original & complex plot where dude married girl, then girl died. The most iconic scene in the whole video is where slash is playing guitar outside the church, and I doubt if that came from del's 'vision'.

Time has shown Del to be more of a chronic parasite than an author of any sort, despite what he calls himself.

Which of his great works is your fave? Could it be the mediocre high-school student level piece 'The Language of Fear', or the even shorter and simpler 'Without You'. He's about as prolific as Axl, but with none of the talent.

Axl himself recently said he now thinks NR and those other illusions videos are corny.

Where did he say this? Do you have a link? I never read such thing....

Trunk interview if memory serves.

Axl himself recently said he now thinks NR and those other illusions videos are corny.

I mean, most of us could see that at the time. I doubt if slash or duff could watch the 'lost ring' scene in the NR video from the moment it was put on film. It's just sphincter-tighteningly bad.

At least by the time they made estranged they just dispensed completely with any sort of narrative and just had Axl jumping from tankers & slash walking on water.

That parting shot with Axl & the dolphin showed how far gone the guy was. He'd lost perspective on an almost Michael Jackson-esque scale by 1994.

He wears size AXL. There's a great pic where you can see it.

The 1992 Axl colossus didn't do shoe sizes - shoe sizes did Axl.

Ben n jerry's is don't cry right?!

Twat is probably my fave song on cd so that last post of mine did it a disservice I think. It's just the guitar sound that tarnishes it for me.

Those tones from slash and his Marshall half-stack were a mile wide. When I say I miss the music that's kinda partly what I mean. To me it was an essential part of the guns experience.

I agree Slash's guitar tone was perfect for Guns, and it makes sense cause he was THE guitar player of Gn'R.

Having said that...what are you, nuts? listen to Robin's tone on his Twat solo. It's crying. And Bucket's outro! perfect tone bro.

Agreed, Bucket's outro has great epic feel to it, I like it a lot.

The main twat solo's an interesting case though, because there the tone is definitely good, but IMO the solo itself is seriously overrated. It's just a sequence of simple bends with some minimalist frusciante-style silence. It also really dies on its ass towards the end. If you compare it to the coma solo, breakdown solos, don't damn me solo, civil war, even pretty tied up - it really isn't all that.

It's also become THE go-to guitar moment on cd for Axl apologists, which ironically enough ruins it a little. I'd need to smoke a whole heap of crack before I could hear that solo justifying Axl's choices.

Ben n jerry's is don't cry right?!

Twat is probably my fave song on cd so that last post of mine did it a disservice I think. It's just the guitar sound that tarnishes it for me.

Those tones from slash and his Marshall half-stack were a mile wide. When I say I miss the music that's kinda partly what I mean. To me it was an essential part of the guns experience.

I like the fact that some of the lyrics are a bit more oblique, especially on twat. The illusions trilogy is lyrically excruciating in parts to be honest.

All that "Lord help me i'm so fucked up but working thru my psychological problems" was pretty awful, and looked about as cool as dogshit the second cobain and vedder showed up.

But the music itself is much, much weaker on the more recent songs IMO. Put estranged next to any of those later three and it's like parking a Bentley next to beat-up old hatch.