RONIN

Thunderchucker Frank needs to be renamed to dungflinger 

OH MY GOD needs to be played. Dave Navarro guest spot pliz.

Please don't click on that instagram link. 

4 hours ago, fantomas said:

Christ, I forgot the Madison saga.  Yeah, I lost a ton of respect from Axl on that one. His misogynistic side came in spades that day, he made it very clear that it was us vs them.  I like Axl as a musician but as a person, he's kinda trash.

I cringed when I read that.  And Madison was an unabashed Axl fan. She banned a good portion of the die hards on this forum when CD dropped because of our negativity. And her reward was to get a message like that. Rose has a well earned reputation as a shitbag.

Ironic that TB did so much (allegedly) to drive a deeper wedge between Rose and Duff/Slash, yet they're probably the biggest beneficiaries of this reunion. That family is set for generations with the kind of wealth Axl has accumulated over the last 3 years. All this success recently in spite of their best efforts to drive the brand off a cliff. I suspect they'll be milking this thing long after Axl is gone. If Paul Huge is Yoko, TB is GnR's Colonel Tom Parker (without an iota of his competence). Wonder how much they will swindle from Rose at the end of this story.

If these people want truckloads of money to drop from the sky, just give the fans something to hold onto. The more fan service you do, the more money you will make. See Metallica. They can't even do that properly. Help us give you more money you idiots. Release something. Anything.

He honestly doesn't sound any worse now than he did during 2011-2014. His costumes/dress-up parties are far more problematic. Elton John wants his wardrobe back.

14 minutes ago, Sydney Fan said:

 People must be reaching out to axls twitter in the hope he may read their posts and if there are a considerable amount of people posting then its becoming a  issue  axl could start asking questions back to fernando...IF he cares. Im sure slash and duff get people posting to their twitter accounts as well that this is pissing the gnr fanbase off.Dels post months back that he doesnt give a fuck says it all.

UMG must be laughing their asses off that one of the biggest touring bands has a managemen team like this. I really dont blame izzy not joining the band with a management team like this. At this stage the band could not d o worse  if they brought back azoff or even doug goldstein!.

Azoff would be a huge upgrade. Whatever you want to say about him, he's A-list management. Team Brazil aren't fit to work the ticket booth at a local carnival. But what's the point of having an A-list manager when the star doesn't listen to them? Managing Rose is like trying to be Mickey Rourke's manager - both of them are unmanageable pain in the asses. Huge surprise that Rourke and Axl are friends that are both represented by amateurs.

Three things come to mind after reading the last few pages:

1. I don't care what Duff and Slash say or whether a lawsuit lists them as co-owners of the GnR brand, there is no way they have veto power over Axl. He is running that band (into the ground). I can't imagine a scenario where Axl cedes control to Duff/Slash. They're in the band on his terms, count on that. Rose needs his 5 course lamb dinner w/ yorkshire pudding each night which these long reunion tours pay for. I imagine Duff has the Doug Goldstein/Paul Huge role now - just asskissing his meal ticket (Rose) so he can buy the next yacht and get invites to Stallone's house. All Slash probably cares about is paying off the small fortune he owes to Perla.

2. I don't know why it took this draconian measure of taking down all bootleg vids to turn on TB, but their toxic influence has been felt for a long time on the fan community imho. In fact even 15 years back there were strong rumors that Beta (and other hanger-ons) were primarily responsible for fanning Axl's hatred of Slash. Whether that was truth who can say but Team Brazil has never really had a positive image in the fan community except with Axl fans (who seem to finally be coming around to reality now).

3. If I had to guess, I'd say a good chunk of this forum (especially older members) downloaded Chinese Democracy in 2008. I don't see that changing for any future release. Fuck em. 

6 hours ago, soon said:

Yay Dead Horse!!! I thought that tone wise Axl did as great a job as is reasonable to expect. And I liked it! But the absence of "then when she said she was gonna like wreck my car, I didnt know what to do" was both heartbreaking and distracting.

Exactly, that line is essential. 

Axl has switched over to eating pumpkin flavored pies and cakes this month in honor of Halloween. 

That is badass. More deep cuts from Illusions pliz. Kudos to the redhead for doing DH and locomotive back to back. Just add Oh My God to that and you have a deep cut trifecta

46 minutes ago, Tom2112 said:

Surprised Sympathy hasn't been in the mix tbh!

Too many bad memories I think  

I actually would love to hear these mid-90's songs over 1/2 the current setlist they have right now:

Since I don't have you

Ain't it Fun 

Look at your game girl

Sympathy for the Devil

Oh My God remixed by Duff and Slash

Slash should get his own luxury trailer with toilet since he's the star attraction of the band at this point. Fair is fair. Team Brazil needs to cough up the extra dough to properly take care of their meal ticket.

I really like the SCOM video (the full "alternate" version) 

It's simple, grounded, and classic. Lots of iconic shots of the band. SCOM and Paradise City are probably the best GnR videos imho. 

On 9/20/2019 at 4:46 AM, Len Cnut said:

Last Blood (2019)

Its been getting fucking slaughtered in reviews, 2 stars is the best I've seen it get.

The reviews are a tad vitriolic but it's such a generic dtv-level movie. Disappointing really given the directions they could have gone in. Feels like a committee made movie where they cut corners to keep the budget low and got a by-the-numbers script to package the movie for overseas funding/distribution. Pretty much a cash-in sequel. Even the old Cannon movies from the 80's like Sly's Over the Top or Cobra had more entertainment value. Last blood had a 50 million dollar budget yet looks like a cheap straight to dvd POS with less set pieces than Rambo 4 (which had the same production budget). Where did the money go? Sly's wallet probably. He has a rep for pocketing a significant chunk of his movie budgets in salary.

The Rambo concept lends itself to some fun action adventure movies if it was given the a-list treatment but Sly is a b-movie guy and he just dumbs down the material for his movies unfortunately. The few times he's worked with a real director (one who isn't taking orders from Sly), you get more high concept fare like Creed or even Cliffhanger. There's nothing wrong with b-movies though, Bronson did a number of great ones from back in the day. Hell, Liam Neeson has been doing them well on auto-pilot for the last decade. I like b-movies if they're done well. This one just isn't. The director of Last Blood is a journeyman type but he did much better work with Mel Gibson's "Get the Gringo". And there you go. The difference between being ghost directed by Gibson vs Sly.

Right Next Door to Hell

 Perfect Crime

 Garden of Eden

 Locomotive

Breakdown

Dead Horse

 Don't Damn Me

 Coma
 

- Axl carried out in a stretcher at the end.

Quote

 

"As I've said before, I shouldn't have been on tour when we started in 1991, that had a lot to do with Alan Niven, our then manager, and Slash. In my opinion Alan wanted money and Slash wanted the touring to get the better of me given my circumstances at the time. My safety and well-being were not their concern." - Axl Rose

https://www.fuse.tv/2013/03/axl-rose-claims-slash-tried-to-sabotage-his-health

 

Niven's response essentially was that the band was very excited to tour and that he found Axl's complaint ridiculous. 

Street of Dreams was the breakup song for Axl and Slash. 

Post-reunion, this song is much more appropriate to cover for Slaxl:

I'd like Slash to improvise a bit more - he did a killer little improv to the ending of Don't Cry in 2016....but that was for one show. The song has been played the exact same way since. They could stand to just mix it up a little on the songs at least to keep it interesting for themselves.

Axl must be sick and tired of singing AFD songs...not to mention doing the same choreographed stage moves night after night

That excerpt from Duff's book:

On July 5, 1993, we all rendezvoused in Barcelona for a huge outdoor show at the Olympic Stadium. Axl came in from Venice. I returned from a visit with Linda to the Spanish island of Ibiza. Slash was already in Barcelona. After Suicidal Tendencies and Brian May had played their opening sets, our manager, Doug Goldstein, sent an oddly formal request to see me and Slash before the show. This was unusual. When Slash and I arrived at the vibe room, one of the tour managers was sitting there waiting for us. The guy was clutching some papers. He put a slim stack of pages down in front of each of us. I leafed through it. It was a legal document giving Axl the right to continue to play as Guns N’ Roses even if either Slash or I—or both of us—were not part of it. Though it didn’t affect our status as shareholders in the operation, Axl and Axl alone would control the name if we signed this agreement.

“What the fuck?” I said. “Look, man,” the tour manager said. “The truth is, you guys are not in good shape—you know that yourselves. If one of you dies, nobody wants to have to spend years in court battling your families or whatever.” That was not what it said, however. There was nothing about death in these documents. With the crowd outside already getting rowdy, the guy then implied Axl wouldn’t go onstage that night unless we signed the documents. I pictured people getting hurt if a riot started—at least that was my fear. And I was so fucking exhausted—it felt as I though I’d been dragging a house around behind me for the last two years. Besides, at the time I never thought GN’R could possibly exist without us. The idea seemed ridiculous. And in that case, maybe the documents didn’t need to be fixed?

Fuck it. I signed. So did Slash. Guns N’ Roses—the trademark now owned by Axl—took the stage. The next day, I grabbed Doug Goldstein on the tarmac at the airport. I had woken up really upset about what had happened the previous night. Slash and I shouldn’t have signed those papers. But management wouldn’t let the whole thing go forward anyway. Right? I shouted at Doug, saying he needed to fix things. “Look, Duff,” he said, “you’re a smart guy. I manage Guns N’ Roses.” “Yeah, I know, Doug. And that’s why we have to—” . “No, you’re not getting it. I manage Guns N’ Roses.” “Are you trying to tell me you manage the name Guns N’ Roses?” 

I was still a member of the band. Not a paid hand. Slash and I still had the same equity stake as before. We had just relinquished control of the name. Doug looked at me with no expression. “You manage the guy who owns the name Guns N’ Roses—is that where you’re going, Doug?” He shrugged. That was where he was going. I was apoplectic with rage. I couldn’t even speak.

5 minutes ago, GnR Chris said:

They claimed they were in effect held hostage right before a show with Axl threatening not to go on if they didn't sign over the rights to the band name. They said they did so under distress and threat that fans would riot if Axl didn't take the stage. All of that is false. 

Not necessarily so black and white I think. I believe the narrative since Duff's book is that this was a power move from Axl that was carried out by Doug Goldstein. Maybe Axl did not know all of the details or how Doug was going to do it, but essentially he looked the other way when it happened and reaped the benefits after the deed was done. That's my impression from the interviews/books we have available on the topic. The discrepancy really is over when this happened. During the Illusion tour or earlier.

There's a Niven interview from a decade or so back where he mentions how he believes the rights to the name may have been legally transferred over to Axl during the geffen renegotiation in '91 (buried in the fine print) as one of Doug Goldstein's first acts as manager. If this is correct, that would line up with those Slash interviews from 95/96' where he sounds blindsided about the legal ownership of the band's name and that his lawyers were looking into the details. That also lines up with Axl's version where he says that it wasn't a big deal to Slash and that he was okay with it (in '91) but began to express resentment over the issue after the embarrassment he felt from his inner circle that he had no control over the name as the band was starting to fall apart in the mid 90's.

I think Niven's account of events makes more sense though that doesn't necessarily discount the other version. Izzy, Duff, and Slash tell the same story of Axl becoming obsessed with drawing up legal documents for the band in the 90's so it's entirely plausible for Sluff to have been victims of legal shenanigans from Doug on the Illusion tour. Likely it was over something else and not the GnR name transfer though.

52 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

I think Slash changed his tune slightly through the years. First he emphasised in musical differences, then he said it wasn't the reason of the split. He was more "accommodating" in interviews around the time he visited Axl's house compared to the early VR days, and so on.

The late 90s-early 00s bitterness probably had to do with that they really weren't expecting that Axl would continue on his own and wouldn't call them back; plus, Axl had started talking again and telling his side for the first time (also expressing resentment on his part). But despite of what Slash said during that period, he also sounded like he would go back to GnR if he got the call.  

Have you read the (relatively) recent Merck interview?

http://www.a-4-d.com/t3843-2019-04-26-music-week-ex-guns-n-roses-manager-merck-mercuriadis-talks-slash-axl-s-reunion

It seems like each side was expecting the other to take the first step.

Thanks for sharing that. As we all suspected, bruised egos between the principals which led to missed opportunities. 2002-2006 would have been a fantastic time to reunite had Axl put out his album in '99 or 2000. Agreed on Slash, if you look at his old interviews between 2000 (once that 2nd snakepit album went nowhere) to right before VR, he leaves the door open for a return to GnR. Do you think Velvet Revolver affected the trajectory of the reunion? 2002-2005 was a major low point for Axl and Nu Guns...

What could have been...