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#1801 Re: Guns N' Roses » Axl fires back at Irv with lawsuit » 787 weeks ago
elevendayempire wrote:Hell, he played with John 5 at that Slash & Friends gig and pretty much confined the guy to rhythm work only...
Hmmm... is that why John 5 played the Crazy Train solo then at that gig? Get your facts straight!
Yes, I know John 5 played the Crazy Train solo at that gig; that's why I said "pretty much" confined him to rhythm work. A complete waste of the guy's talents, of course, but God forbid that anyone should be allowed to outshine Slash at his gig...
Slash also let Kushner play the odd solo on some of the covers at VR gigs, but 99.9% of the time, the spotlight stays on Slash. He's crafted an image for himself as the "guitar hero", the iconic member of the band, and part of that involves making sure that he dominates the stage and gets almost all of the solo spots, occasionally throwing his backing guitarist a bone here and there.
Compare that to Axl's GN'R, where there's more of a share and share alike approach among the three guitarists. Of course, that just means the naysayers crow about it "taking three people to fill Slash's shoes," which is patently bollocks.
#1802 Re: Guns N' Roses » Axl fires back at Irv with lawsuit » 787 weeks ago
elevendayempire wrote:Fortus on rhythm (he's more reliable than Izzy)
PLEASE. Fortus couldn't write a tune with a gun to his head while Izzy can whip up killer tunes in three shakes of a lamb's tail, and can do it quicker when working with Axl. Izzy's stage presence shits all over the Jordanesque jumping abilities of Fortus. At shows, no one cares about Fortus while Izzy gets a huge pop from the crowd.
Fortus isn't even a wart on Izzy's ass.
James, I know the red mist descends whenever Fortus' name is mentioned on here, but if you'd read my post I never said that Fortus was better than Izzy, I said he was more reliable from the perspective of our hypothetical ruthless businessman. Izzy is wont to get bored and wander off into the desert at a moment's notice; Fortus can be relied upon to actually turn up to the gigs. Izzy doesn't like the hassle of touring with a large-scale production and backed out of VR because of that (and because he didn't want to work with egotistical frontmen again).
He's happy enough dropping in on individual gigs and contributing in the studio, though; fair enough, but you need a touring guitarist. I'd rather have Fortus up there than Kushner or Gilby or whoever the fuck is in Slash's touring band at the moment. Fortus has the on-stage energy that Slash used to have before he had the pacemaker fitted...
Anyways, it's all hypothetical and isn't likely to ever happen. 
#1803 Re: Guns N' Roses » Axl fires back at Irv with lawsuit » 787 weeks ago
elevendayempire wrote:Slash wants to play in a band with two guitarists, where the other guitarist doesn't showboat or solo. Axl wants to sing in a band with three guitarists, where each one gets pretty much equal soloing time; these two positions are pretty much irreconcilable.
Axl wants this for power play reasons, not for musical reasons.
Except the guitarists pretty much decide between themselves who plays which part. Bumblefoot's said as much.
And Slash does the exact opposite for power play reasons - he's spent years honing his image as the guitar hero, and part of that effort includes ensuring he only plays with rhythm guitarists who remain passive partners in his bands. Hell, he played with John 5 at that Slash & Friends gig and pretty much confined the guy to rhythm work only...
#1804 Re: Guns N' Roses » Axl fires back at Irv with lawsuit » 787 weeks ago
put Slash in for Dj....end of discussion.
I can't see that working 'cause of Slash's ego. Would you really want to be the one to tell him that Bumble gets to play the big solo at the end of November Rain or TWAT? Look back at Slash's career to date; he takes great care to ensure that he's the one who plays ALL the solos. I think the first bit of the Nightrain solo's pretty much the only occasion where he lets someone else have the limelight. Oh, there's that little guitar duel in the live version of Set Me Free, too.
Slash wants to play in a band with two guitarists, where the other guitarist doesn't showboat or solo. Axl wants to sing in a band with three guitarists, where each one gets pretty much equal soloing time; these two positions are pretty much irreconcilable.
#1805 Re: Guns N' Roses » Axl fires back at Irv with lawsuit » 787 weeks ago
Leaving aside the not-inconsiderable issue that Axl teaming up with the old band would inevitably mean shitting on people who he considers friends and who've been loyal to him for a decade or more in some cases, I could sort-of see a compromise line-up working.
Fortus on rhythm (he's more reliable than Izzy, plus he can jump around on stage in a way which Slash and his pacemaker can't), Sorum or Frank on drums, Duff and Slash rounding out the band with Dizzy and Pitman on keys. That'd keep a roughly even balance between the Axl and the Slash camps. Izzy could drop in for odd gigs and have a songwriting role on the next album, and Huge could contribute songs.
That could be workable (and, crucially, could be billed as a GN'R reunion) - but as I said above, that'd mean giving DJ, Frank, Bumble and Tommy the boot. And I really couldn't see Axl doing that to his friends; why would he fuck over Tommy, who's stood by him since 1996, just to tour with someone he's described as a cancer?
#1806 Re: Guns N' Roses » Axl fires back at Irv with lawsuit » 787 weeks ago
Having said that, if Axl had ridden the wave of publicity in 2001/02 and released Chinese Democracy then (ie worked out a bit, got himself a vocal trainer, put on a decent performance at the VMAs and released the album soon afterwards) there was a chance that he could've got the general public to accept Buckethead as the new GN'R guitarist.
Look at the coverage of the band back then; Bucket - through a combination of his talent and his out-there image - was close to being accepted as a similarly "iconic" figure as Slash. Had Axl been willing (or able) to capitalise on that, I reckon that he could've cemented the '02 line-up in the minds of the general public as GN'R.
Even Bucket's freaky image wasn't that much of an issue, in the days when you had the likes of Slipknot and Wes Borland on MTV. It's only in the years since that Buckethead's odd image has become a stick to beat Axl with; back then it was more a case of, "Okay, he looks like a freak but Axl clearly thinks he has the chops to fill Slash's shoes, and do the lead guitar on the album he's been working on for nearly a decade..."
#1807 Re: Guns N' Roses » Axl fires back at Irv with lawsuit » 787 weeks ago
Azoff fired Robin? Bwhahahahaa, yeah right. Azoff doesn't have that authority, and he and Robin know it. Only W. Axl Rose has that authority. Now him firing Robin and an effort to bring back Slash... why? Something tells me Axl would've considered calling Buckethead, before calling Slash, and Azoff most likely would already know this ahead of time. Or the VIABLE option of bringing back Izzy, putting him on rhythm, and sticking Fortus on lead. There are other options out there, before bringing back Slash, and Axl knows this. I don't think he's so dumb as to fall for all of this BS that Azoff was "supposedly" selling.
No, there's no realistic option - assuming you're a ruthless businessman who wants to break up Axl's band and force him to tour with other GN'R guitarists - other than bringing back Slash. A businessman like Azoff would look at what the "general public" consider to be GN'R, and in the minds of the general public, GN'R is Axl and Slash plus some other guys.
The general public usually latches onto two members of a band as the "essential" components, the iconic members of the band. Generally, they're the singer and the lead guitarist; everyone else in the band is disposable. Mick could not tour as The Rolling Stones without Keith, Page could not go on the road claiming to be Led Zeppelin without Plant. Queen had a hell of a hard time convincing people that Paul Rogers was a worthy replacement for Freddie Mercury, but no-one other than hardcore Queen fans gave a shit about the fact that John Deacon wasn't on bass. Drummers and bassists are pretty much disposable (unless they're Flea in the Chilis); note that Page, Plant and Jones were able to get away with calling themselves Led Zeppelin, even though they had the wrong Bonham in the drum stool. There would be a fucking uproar if Liam Gallagher toured as Oasis with the members of Beady Eye, even though they're the most recent Oasis line-up minus Noel Gallagher; by the same token, were Liam and Noel to get back together with a bunch of other musicians backing them, they could quite happily call themselves Oasis.
Axl could tour with his current band, replacing any one of the guitarists with Slash, and all the naysayers, the idiot DJs slating him and his band, the watercooler gossip, would just melt away. Because GN'R is, as far as the vast majority of the record-buying public are concerned, Axl and Slash. If Axl brought Izzy in as a regular member, the hardcore fans would go mental - but the general public couldn't care less (despite the fact that Izzy was, ironically, more crucial to the original line-up than Slash). If Axl brought Buckethead back, some fans - a subset of a subset of fans - would go mad for it, but Buckethead doesn't have the iconic resonance with the general public that Slash does.
So if you were a ruthless businessperson looking to tour a "reunited" GN'R, you would want Axl and Slash up there. Duff and Izzy would be bonuses, and no-one really gives a toss who's playing the drums (sorry Matt and Steven. And Josh. And Brain. And Frank.). The trouble for those ruthless businesspeople is, Axl doesn't want to play their game.
#1808 Guns N' Roses » Bit o' goss from Holy Moly. » 788 weeks ago
- elevendayempire
- Replies: 9
Holy Moly is, of course, the scurrilous online UK gossip rag:
"Back when Guns N' Roses - well, Axl and co. - were recording Chinese Democracy, Axl got Buckethead in to do some guitar parts (he's the one that wears a mask and a KFC bucket on his noggin).
However, he told Axl that to record his parts properly, he needed to have a chicken coop built in the studio for him, as that's where he felt most comfortable. Axl was desperate for the guitar parts to be put down, so complied and had the coop built.
Some days later, Axl came in to oversee the recording, only to find a couple of engineers with concerned looks on their faces. Axl asked what was wrong, and they just pointed towards the studio, so off he frowned to find out what was wrong.
Upon arriving at the coop, he discovered Buckethead was sitting inside it, howling like a wolf, and smearing his own shit on the coop's walls.
Suffice to say, Buckethead didn't stay long.
A few months later, sans Buckethead, Axl eventually managed to tour the album, but found it impossible to go onstage at the time he was supposed to. Every minute he ran over curfew, the venue fined the band.
Axl's tour manager was tearing his hair out about how much money they were losing, so the promoter came up with a plan...
He walked into Axl's dressing room one evening with some sheets of A4 paper, on which were printed pictures of a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and a Porsche. Each page was then placed on the table in front of Axl. He was told that every night he wasn't fined, he'd find one of these supercars on his driveway at home. It did the trick."
The Buckethead/shit story is kinda skewed; from what I remember, Axl had a pet wolf/husky hybrid and it was that which went for a shit in Bucket's coop; Bucket then insisted, over the objections of the engineers, that the shit be left in the studio 'cause it helped the whole animal vibe. Oh, and since the Bucket/shit story was from circa 2001, it had fuck-all to do with Bucket's departure from the band.
#1809 Re: Guns N' Roses » CITR Remix » 788 weeks ago
Could someone dial down the guitars and overlay the vocals, drums, bass and piano over the Brian May version?
#1810 Re: Guns N' Roses » Listen: Snippets of master tracks » 788 weeks ago
Wonder if we'll finally get these. I'd never been *that* enthused by them, but hearing those snippets does make me want to fiddle around with them and hear all the layers. And, of course, try and mash together the good-quality vocals, bass and drums from Catcher with the Brian May version...
