shotgunblues1978

According to Twitter, Ron just landed in Vegas. It appears that Axl, DJ, and Dizzy are all there as well. Finger crossed that they'll be in the studio shortly.

It is certainly intriguing that multiple people who worked on or heard the album prior to its release stated that the strongest tracks of the entire bunch were some of the ones that remain unreleased.

Bach and Brain listed The General as their favorite (or one of the best)

Marco Beltrami worked on Seven, Soul Monster, The General, and Thyme. Stated that Seven was the best of the bunch.

Axl said that Soul Monster may be his favorite of the group

Pitman listed "Beta's Barn"

I believe Tom Zutaut said Atlas Shrugged was one of the better songs

I think Axl said in the chats that "Checkmate" was a bogus titile, the working title of that song was Jackie Chan

Why would a band do that?

A comeback album, which took over a decade to release, your trying to jumpstart (and introduce) an entire new band to the public that will make them get over what happened with Duff/Slash/Izzy...........and you purposely choose NOT to put the best songs on it? And not only that, you then sit on those "best songs" for another decade????? It really makes no sense.

Since when has Axl done things according to this type of logic?

They left Don't Cry, YCBM and November Rain off of AFD because they were already thinking about the next album and thought they didn't fit AFD's flow or vibe as well. They sat on those songs for 4 years, and not because they weren't as good as Anything Goes or Think About You.

Axl said that he considered it a double album. So in his mind, it's probably not any different than having songs like Civil War, Locomotive, Estranged, Breakdown on UYI II, from an artistic perspective. To him, from an artistic standpoint, I'm guessing it's irrelevant that those albums were released on the same day and the CD "double album" was not released all at once.

It is certainly intriguing that multiple people who worked on or heard the album prior to its release stated that the strongest tracks of the entire bunch were some of the ones that remain unreleased.

Bach and Brain listed The General as their favorite (or one of the best)

Marco Beltrami worked on Seven, Soul Monster, The General, and Thyme. Stated that Seven was the best of the bunch.

Axl said that Soul Monster may be his favorite of the group

Pitman listed "Beta's Barn"

I believe Tom Zutaut said Atlas Shrugged was one of the better songs

I think Axl said in the chats that "Checkmate" was a bogus titile, the working title of that song was Jackie Chan

I think Flood would be a good fit

Great track, really illustrates Axl's sense of melody, which is perhaps his greatest gift as a songwriter. I'm not sure what people are going on about when they say it is "cut and paste" or overproduced. It's one of the simplest and cleanest songs on the album, in terms of both production and writing/structure. Just because a song has (gasp) multiple layers of instrumentals does not mean it is overproduced.

As for the vocals, I feel that they fit the music and the song. The song wouldn't have been as effective with raspy vocals.

Probably because it was 10 years ago. He is pretty much a session drummer I think. I doubt he would turn down work because of loyalty to a bygone project. Even Bach flits between Axl and old Guns members and he is supposedly a good friend of Axl's.

Axl offered Freese a great opportunity that was in large part responsible for the launch of his career. I would say with a certain degree of certainty that he understood the emotional place Axl had been in motivating Chinese Democracy. I do not find it surprising therefore that Axl was 'bummed out' by Freese playing with Slash.

And it's specifically Slash by the way. Bach only collaborates with old GNR elements that have either found a degree of reconciliation or are frankly irrelevant (Matt Sorum).

Sorry, you were saying...

https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=mattsorum

@myleskennedy is replacing @sebastianbach in Africa thank you we will rock it

Anyone who says Adler is either lying to themselves or is staggeringly unintelligent

fuck off

I would rather be unintelligent than being a fan of Ashba

You don't have to be a fan of DJ Ashba to realize that his position in life is far better than Steven Adler's in 2013. Like I said Steven would trade places with DJ in an instant.

Mike Tyson made over $300 million and had to file for bankruptcy

Steven's been unemployed and a heavy drug user for the majority of time since 1990. Sure, he still receives royalty checks, but he hasn't made any real money touring or making new material in almost 25 years

Would you rather be remembered as the guy who played on Appetite for Destruction or Addicted to the Friction?

Would you rather be a broke drug addict who played on a great album 25 years ago and whose life has been an absolute trainwreck ever since, or somebody who is doing exactly what they want to do in life and is professionally/financially successful today?

Steven would trade places with DJ in a heartbeat if he could.

Anyone who says Adler is either lying to themselves or is staggeringly unintelligent

Songs like TWAT, Better, Riad and Prostitute were pretty close to the sound I expected

I forgot what an awful singer Eric Dover is. The vocal "melodies" on that song make it almost unlistenable. The sub-AC/DC riff and cock rock chorus don't help either.

The court documents from the 2004 lawsuit

http://www.gnrevolution.com/viewtopic.php?pid=54633#p54633

"On, or around September 1, 1992, Axl, Slash and Duff entered into a written partnership agreement defining the rights of the Original GNR partners, and obligations entitled "Memorandum of Agreement". [...] Among other things, the Agreement provided that Axl would own the rights to the name "Guns N' Roses" if he was expelled or voluntarily withdrew from the partnership." (Slash & Duff v. Axl lawsuit document, 2004)

This Rolling Stone article about the Axl forum chats has the quote that I remember from but I haven't been able to locate the original article. Hopefully I can dig it up.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/did-axl-rose-swindle-guns-n-roses-and-steal-slashs-song-a-guide-to-roses-online-rants-20081215

"Unfortunately, we signed it," said Slash. "I didn't think he'd go on stage otherwise."

I have never heard it refuted by Marc or anyone. Duff says it came through a tour manager, not Axl personally which supports what Marc has just said above (nobody is saying that Axl personally came up to them and said he wasn't going on: that is a straw man argument).

Slash's original statement heavily implied (though it did not state it explicitly) that it was Axl himself who did it, and that it was right before a show. That is the story that the general public believes, and it was originally put out there by Slash. I'm guessing there are a number of other factors at play, but that is likely a major factor as to why he is more upset at Slash than the others. The general public and the media have clung to that story.

Second, read Marc's post at the top of this page. It didn't go down the way it has been portrayed, and management had their own reasons for wanting Axl to control the name as well. In any case, it's just my opinion that Slash being the first to put that story out there may be a large cause of the resentment Axl harbors toward him, at least compared to other actions and statements that the public/fans know about.

Have you got a link to Slash's original statement?

There are several different versions. Here is one from 1995, where he says Axl owns the name:

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/508988/axl-rose-buys-guns-n-roses-name.jhtml

"That's something that happened," Slash said this week from his L.A. home. "I was blindsided by it, more or less a legal faux pas. I don't know what he's gonna do, as far as that goes. But I'd be lying to say I wasn't a little bit peeved at that. It'd be one thing if I quit altogether. But I haven't, and the fact that he can actually go and do that without the consent of the other members of the band ..."

However I would have to look for the one where he first mentions the backstage story.

I have never heard it refuted by Marc or anyone. Duff says it came through a tour manager, not Axl personally which supports what Marc has just said above (nobody is saying that Axl personally came up to them and said he wasn't going on: that is a straw man argument).

Slash's original statement heavily implied (though it did not state it explicitly) that it was Axl himself who did it, and that it was right before a show. That is the story that the general public believes, and it was originally put out there by Slash. I'm guessing there are a number of other factors at play, but that is likely a major factor as to why he is more upset at Slash than the others. The general public and the media have clung to that story.

Second, read Marc's post at the top of this page. It didn't go down the way it has been portrayed, and management had their own reasons for wanting Axl to control the name as well. In any case, it's just my opinion that Slash being the first to put that story out there may be a large cause of the resentment Axl harbors toward him, at least compared to other actions and statements that the public/fans know about.

Slash's statement that Axl refused to go onstage and threatened to torpedo the entire UYI tour unless Slash & Duff signed over the name to him

This was verified by Duff McKagan in his autobiography.

It has also been refuted by multiple other sources, including Marc

People can say what they want Axl was absolutely correct from a legal perspective in his statement on the forum chats. If it happened as they claimed, the contract would've been invalidated due to it being signed under duress.

Slash's statement that Axl refused to go onstage and threatened to torpedo the entire UYI tour unless Slash & Duff signed over the name to him did more damage than all other statements made by former band members combined. The general public still believes that it's true, even though it has been verified by multiple sources that it didn't go down like that.

I'm sure there are plenty of other things behind the scenes that contributed to it, but that one statement has done a ton of damage to Axl in terms of general public perception. Slash's version of events simply wasn't true, and he has never admitted that. I'm guessing he doesn't want to look foolish; the decision probably cost him millions and it's easier for him to play the role of someone victimized by Axl's ego and control issues rather than just saying he made a bad business decision.

Seems pretty certain that Axl had them sign contracts allowing him to use any of the work they came up with during the course of their GnR recording sessions. Plus as Bacardi mentioned it would make no sense for them to block the release even if they could, from a financial perspective.

Isn't "Dad Rock" a term to refer to "classic rock" that has not really been embraced by younger generations but still maintains a strong following amongst older crowds?

As others in this thread have pointed out, I've never heard it applied to the Stones, Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd, etc. To me it seems to be applied more to stuff like Bob Seger, post Back In Black AC/DC, Three Dog Night, etc.

Fact: Dizzy contributed far more to GnR than Gilby Clarke did artistically, even if you only count the UYI days. Why doesn't anyone bitch about Gilby being made an official member of GnR? Just because he replaced an existing member?

Dizzy did the piano on the outro to Locomotive, did he not? Is that not a pretty cool instrumental piece of the album? He co-wrote some of the better material on CD as well. I'm pretty sure people just single him out because he was "Axl's guy."

Wouldn't be surprising. Slash knows that his only chance at headlining a major event these days is to leech off of someone else's popularity. He's done this with an even lamer act than Bon Jovi (Black Eyed Peas at the Super Bowl).

If GN'R was considered uncool in 1992, how did Sympathy for the Devil become a Billboard Hot 100 hit in 1995? It #55 early that year, which is actually higher than a lot of Nirvana's singles hit on the same chart.

Hell, November Rain hit #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1992--Nearly a year after Nevermind came out.

The "Nirvana Killed GN'R" myth is just that...a revisionist myth. GN'R killed itself.

By that logic, GnR was considered cool in 2008. Chinese Democracy (the song) hit #34 on the Billboard Hot 100. But that kind of goes against everything that you claim on this board, doesn't it?

I do agree that Nirvana had little to do with GnR's decline. To me it was more to do with the infighting, the continual bad press, the poorly received Spaghetti Incident album, and general "fatigue" from the American public.

TSI was very poorly received given their relative of popularity at the time. The UYI albums were a massive success both critically and commercially, and the TSI was a dud on both levels. For TSI to only go single platinum in the US at that point in time would be the equivalent of a Guns album selling 100,000 total copies today. UYI sold about 15 million combined in the US, TSI sold 1 million. That's a huge drop off. And yes, it's a covers album which contributed to that decline, but its performance was still quite poor even with that in mind.

GnR was seen as very uncool in the US by the mid 90s. The public perception of the band (and I mean the classic era), at least in the United States, is much higher now than it was in 1994 or 1995. Classic era GnR is certainly more popular now than it was in 1995. So the sharpest decline had nothing to do with CD, or the VMAs, or any of that.

The 2002 VMAs were bad though, and the press did not react kindly. It's unfortunate that Axl did not turn up sounding and looking like he did at the 2006 Rock Am Ring, especially on Jungle. I think he would've won a lot of people over with a performance like that.

I feel great about it. It leads to a massive sound in a live setting

Never understood the piano gripe. Gave some of the songs a very Stonesy vibe, helped differentiate UYI from the previous albums. However there's a large faction of the GnR fanbase that would've loved to see them become AC/DC, making the same album over and over again