West Arkeen

[stella]

Yeh, that book is complete crap. Mick Wall painted a very one side picture of Axl. There's almost nothing positive about Axl in that entire book. I know some of you would argue that Axl is a complete tool and that he is everything that Mick wall says, that's fair enough, but from reading Duffs book, and listening to the Craig Duswalt interviews etc. he comes across a whole lot more compassionate and loyal than Mick Wall would have you believe.

I agree. I am not a fan of Mick Wall at all. I mean, the title of the book is "William Axl Rose," he couldn't even get the guy's name right? That's never, ever been Axl's name. Mick Wall had an axe to grind, and he did. And there seems to be a British-American cultural divide there as well. I remember there's one stupid story about how Mick asked Axl's brother for an egg cup and Stuart had no idea what he was talking about, and Mick took that as a sign of low breeding...um, maybe it's more that people in America don't routinely use friggin' egg cups?!

Yeah, that egg story bugged me too. He paints Stuart as being borderline retarted.

With the exception of those couple of years in the late 80's, and maybe an interview or two with Izzy, years later, he hasn't had any access to the band, or Axl. The book is based almost entirely on source info that is accessible to all of us: articles, interviews, etc. Which is fine. You work with what you got. But you shouldn't then take this info, which is very incomplete and open to interpretation, and give your interpretation of it, without making it crystal clear that it is just that: your interpretation. He does this constantly.

And quotations! He fucked up (or purposefully changed) a lot of them. You're reading along and you're like "Oh yeah, I remember that. But hmmm, that doesn't sound quite right. I thought that line was a bit different." And sure enough, you look it up and the quote is wrong. That's the whole fucking point of a quote! To relay exactly what someone else said! Jesus.

An example of this that stands out for me (probably because it came near the end) is his butchering of what Billy Joe Armstrong said during his R n' R Hall of Fame speech. He completely misquoted him - basically changed the entire meaning.

It's also, absolutely full of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and missing punctuation. It's almost like he took the final draft that he originally sent off to the publisher, which hadn't been proofread, tacked on his new intro and final chapter, and put it up for sale without bothering to look it over. Like seriously, you can get away with this kind of stuff and still be a semi-famous writer?! Good news for anyone wanting to pursue a writing career, I guess. The bar is low.

That's what gets me! It's Journalism Integrity 101 not to misquote people or pull their remarks out of context, and he does that constantly. Nobody fact-checked that book, much less edited it. And you're right, for all he implies being part of the inner circle or something, he was cut off from Axl veeerrry early on. I don't know about all of the people Axl mentions in "Get in the Ring," but he seems to be absolutely right to have told Mick Wall to fuck off there. The guy has absolutely no integrity or professionalism and it seems as though he should be working for the National Enquirer and not a legit publication.

[Use Your Delusion 1]

Mick Walls book is utter trash, no Axl fan myself but the constant villification, mass of errors (espeically post 1990 when the book just becomes a load of crap) and poor writing makes me wonder how it got to print. Axl is a facsinating guy, shame a better writer has never tried to make a half readable book.

Sad that Wall is still bitter about that call out in Shotgun Blues or whatever from the Illusions (or Get in the Ring, maybe he;'s just pissed he has to be assoiated with such a crap song, both are the low point of all GNR output imo)

Edited February 22, 2015 by Use Your Delusion 1

[dalsh327]

Both Del and West had done more than be part of GNR, that's the most lucrative but they were in the mix, I forget who they were roommates with.

As far as Get in the Ring goes, all Axl did was immortalize a bunch of hacks, he has to regret ever doing that rant because of that reason. It should have been bootlegged and left off the album. I'm sure they were laughing when Axl was doing it, but the Stones did joke songs like that, the one about Andrew Oldham comes to mind.

Edited February 22, 2015 by dalsh327