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Josh Freese's "music video" for Chinese Democracy (song)


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  • Blackstar changed the title to Josh Freese's "music video" for Chinese Democracy (song)

I believe Josh and I think it sucks that he doesn't get paid the 50%. He's not going to take Axl to court and he's  talking about it without being too bitter. From what it looks like to me he's right. It's like.... Axl is getting more credit for the song but Josh is the one who brought it in....

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Is it just me, or does Tommy give off a bunch of red flags? He’s been known for always having a drinking problem, he pissed off pretty much every guitarist he worked with in GnR, his other band (the mats) broke up fairly quickly and harshly (twice, I may add) and now even Josh is low-key dissing him here.

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34 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

Is it just me, or does Tommy give off a bunch of red flags? He’s been known for always having a drinking problem, he pissed off pretty much every guitarist he worked with in GnR, his other band (the mats) broke up fairly quickly and harshly (twice, I may add) and now even Josh is low-key dissing him here.

a drinking problem in Gn'R? that's fucked up. Tommy wasn't responsible for the breakup of the Replacements. Josh wasn't dissing him, it wasn't personal imo. I imagine it's annoying to hear that other people got credit for minor shit when you came up with the majority of the skeleton of the track. He wasn't nice to Bucket, Bumble, and DJ it seems but they're all big boys that can handle themselves, I'm sure.

Edited by Rovim
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As far as I remember, Axl said Josh came up with the 4 chord riff and that was it. He may not agree, but the arrangement and especially the "more than you got...." part were pretty important for the song's structure. I understand the frustration, but if he didn't write the whole song as he claim, Axl is right to credit the other guys. Not sure about Caram though, if he only added the unnecessary intro.

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13 hours ago, rocknroll41 said:

What the fuck did I just watch… I mean, Sideways is one of my favorite films of all time, but jeez…

Also Josh sounds like a bit of a whiner here. But if what he says is true that all the music on the original demo was written by him, then I can see why he’d be a bit pissed.

The bulk of this video is Shelly Johnson (Madchen Amick) from Twin Peaks working at the diner.  I think that's like her first shot in the show and it might be the weirdest thing to happen in the whole show, somehow.  

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I'm 100% sure if we had gotten a music video for a CD song back when Josh was still in the band, or when it was officially released, it'd be really cringey to watch, with outdated 2000s humor and aesthetic. It would still have been better than absolutely nothing, probably.

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Wonder why all of a sudden he seems so bitter. In other interviews he's done, he talked about how cool it was that he even got some songwriting credit on a Guns N' Roses song released almost a decade after he left the band. 

I know his comments of "take Axl to court" is likely just a figure of speech, but before anyone runs with it, I imagine everyone signs off their songwriting credits when they join the band; essentially allowing Axl to divvy it as he sees fair. Apparently this was a point of contention when Buckethead left, as he had God knows how many riffs/ideas he came up with during his time in the band that belong to GN'R and which he cannot use on his own. I used to work in copyright law (been a hot minute), but I imagine this was how Duff/Slash got credited on "Absurd" and "Hard Skool" which were written by an entirely different band. 

Edited by themadcaplaughs
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6 minutes ago, themadcaplaughs said:

Wonder why all of a sudden he seems so bitter. In other interviews he's done, he talked about how cool it was that he even got some songwriting credit on a Guns N' Roses song released almost a decade after he left the band. 

I know his comments of "take Axl to court" is likely just a figure of speech, but before anyone runs with it, I imagine everyone signs off their songwriting credits when they join the band; essentially allowing Axl to divvy it as he sees fair. Apparently this was a point of contention when Buckethead left, as he had God knows how many riffs/ideas he came up with during his time in the band that belong to GN'R and which he cannot use on his own. I used to work in copyright law (been a hot minute), but I imagine this was how Duff/Slash got credited on "Absurd" and "Hard Skool" which were written by an entirely different band. 

Yeah, although the way the credits on Absurd and Hard Skool were split is not really different from what happened with AFD, Lies and UYI songs which dated from the Hollywood Rose days. Chris Weber has complained about the fact that GN'R members got writing credits on those songs, whereas he didn't get credited for Back Off Bitch and Shadow Of Your Love (he got credit for Anything Goes, Reckless Life and Move To The City after suing GN'R in 1989; then he sued again for BoB and SOYL in 1998, but his lawsuit was dismissed because he was too late to file it).

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  • 2 weeks later...
21 minutes ago, Sweersa said:

After all of the work he and Brain did on that song it's a shame they had Frank re-record the entire drum track. I wish they kept Josh on at least a few songs. Josh's drumming on Silkworms and Hardschool was great.

it's exactly like Zutaut said, it's all brilliant. There was no need to replace Josh's drums on the entire record. I love Brain's style though, but Axl's need to represent current members of the band sometimes takes away from the general feel of the material imho. It was already good but I suppose whatever the artist feels is right...

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51 minutes ago, Rovim said:

it's exactly like Zutaut said, it's all brilliant. There was no need to replace Josh's drums on the entire record. I love Brain's style though, but Axl's need to represent current members of the band sometimes takes away from the general feel of the material imho. It was already good but I suppose whatever the artist feels is right...

I agree, I felt the same thing when he had Bumble re-record over the older Catcher guitars with Brian May. He likely had Bucket do it before him. And I'm sure he will do it again like he did with Hard Skool and Absurd on the next EP/album.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/1/2022 at 8:10 AM, WhazUp said:

Josh Freese's and Stevies' comments to me reinforce how much needless tampering just made the whole thing way more convoluted than rock music ever should be - both in practice and in business

Don't get me wrong I like a lot of Chinese as a whole as compositions, but this record was seemingly made in the most un-rock n' roll way possible and it shows in the sound.  Imagine how powerful some of those tracks would have been if the rhythm section recorded live and fed off each other's energy, and ProTools was used more for post-processing than it was constantly replacing and splicing instrument tracks for (at least) 9 years off-and-on

 

I always wanted to hear a "bare" version of the album (bass, 2 guitars etc) and no overdubs!

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On 12/30/2022 at 2:09 PM, jimisbatman said:

Refresh my memory again guys, what years were Josh + Bucket in GNR? 

I believe Josh was 97-99 and Bucket was early 2000-2004ish. I don’t think they overlapped there. Josh was leaving as Bucket was being recruited but someone feel free to correct if this is wrong.

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