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#661 Re: Dust N' Bones & Cyborg Slunks » Slash's Version Of The Bands Break-Up » 905 weeks ago
The one thing that's painfully obvious around that era is that Slash had, by then, developed into a full-blown alcoholic; drinking just to get past the days. It's something that should be kept in mind whenever considering his relationship to Axl at the time. Think about it, how many times he must've confronted Axl without reddened eyes or a slightly slurred speech? Axl, who'd become a health zealot at some point, would've no doubt been further aggravated by Slash's condition, considering himself the one who should plan ahead and lay the future game plan for GNR. To him, Slash would've been too much in the moment, too much of a drunken drone to actually accomplish the very goals which, in Axl's mind, would've already been reality.
There's one slight notion in Slash's book that can be interpreted this way. Slash and Axl have a conversation about Paul Huge, and Slash (referring to how he has nothing in common with Paul) says he "can't even have a beer with him". Axl stops dead on his tracks and asks "Why do you have to have a beer with him?"
Slash never got that response, or if he did, he didn't reiterate. Without knowing either of the two, I do maintain Slash's excessive drinking (to which he admits) had become a serious problem with Axl, who was very serious about GNR and the next album and was hoping for everyone else to back him up with whatever cause he'd have in his sleeve. Enter Paul Huge, presumably a tee-totaler, or atleast a more controlled consumer than Slash. If there was any advice Axl would've given Paul regarding Slash, I wouldn't be all that surprised if it had been "don't drink with him".
Axl can be blamed for being megalomanic, but in his own mind, more times than not, he would've thought he was acting out in the best interests of the band. Because Slash was inarguably in a poor state after the years of touring and rocket-like success, that alone would've been the only excuse necessary for Axl to justify himself for taking sole control of the group. If the alternative would've been to crawl into the bottle and shout woe to the world, Axl's decisions might've not been the most efficient (or best-informed) ones, but he certainly had more effort in the big picture.
I admit to being biased in a sense that I've seen similar alcoholism from a bit too close for a bit too long, and have no sympathy for people indulging themselves in such ways. I couldn't care less if some of them would be undisputed guitar heroes by their own right.
#662 Re: Dust N' Bones & Cyborg Slunks » Slash's Version Of The Bands Break-Up » 905 weeks ago
Finally checking out the book.
Sadly, there's not too much new information as to the last years of the old band ('94-96), and Slash's timelines are pretty jumbled (not to make this another 'Errors in Slash's book', but don't take his account chronologically). From what I gathered (from the book and elsewhere), there were some sessions with Paul Huge in '94, after Slash'd turned in his guitar demos for It's Five O'Clock Somewhere. After these sessions, there was downtime and Sympathy for the Devil was recorded - and we all know how that came out. Things were getting bad. In early '95, Doug Goldstein, Axl yes-man bar none, was also managing Zakk Wylde, and was no doubt instrumental in getting Axl into introducing Zakk into the fold as a 'replacement' for Paul. Zakk jammed with the band for a week (Axl included), they came up with three good ideas, one of which would surface on the Black Label Society track Rose Petalled Garden. Zakk blew his chances to tour with Ozzy for a few years as Dougie was apparently trying to rip the old coot Osbourne off by putting Zakk, his client, into a situation which would take a good amount of time to go nowhere - Guns N' Roses, to be exact. In order to get Zakk back, Ozzy would've had to shell out a better offer.
Slash went on tour with Snakepit with backing from Geffen, meanwhile Duff would collaborate with Izzy on a dozen or so demos, written in order to jolt Axl into making the album, to provide him with some guidelines. Axl spent the intervening time of early '95 in litigation with Erin Everly (a direct continuation to his legal disputes with Stephanie Seymour); they sat in a court session together on 04/20/95, the day after Timothy McVeigh had blown his truck in the city of Oklahoma. That's when Axl was hit with a song idea.
08/31/95. By now, Slash'd played his last show with the Snakepit (08/25/95), as Geffen had advised that Axl wants to do a record and Slash's honeymoon with his solo act should thus be considered over. Axl immediately presented him a with welcome home -present, the letter, which unceremoniously declared his intention to disband the GNR musical partnership by 12/30/95, maintain exclusive rights to the band name and form a new group from 12/31/95 onwards. Slash, Duff, Matt and Dizzy were all invited, although in a different capacity than before. Now all the others were essentially session musicians, with Axl having the upper hand on deciding who stays and who goes. This is why Paul Huge was brought back; Axl now had the legal muscle to force him to the others.
On 12/31/95, Axl had became synonymous to GNR.
In '96, Paul Huge and Dizzy Reed likely started working on a studio space on Axl's tab, recording loops and samples, which would be stored and uploaded to Axl's Pro Tools deck. The foundation of a new album, which the grand old punk John Lydon once called "folky nonsense", as he heard the skimmed-down lineup hard at work while he himself was rehearsing for the Sex Pistols reunion tour. Duff and Matt had started hanging out with Steve Jones, another Sex Pistol, and John Taylor from Duran Duran, and were recording an album with them. They'd already toured for the first two months of the year and weren't seemingly compromising their other projects.
The Sex Pistols went on tour in the summer, and since Steve Jones was a good sport, Neurotic Outsiders dates were strategically placed in the vacant between various legs of the tour. The closest call came in the summer. Three dates into Filthy Lucre, Sex Pistols had just played their first London show in decades on 06/23. Neurotic Outsiders played a stand-alone date, also in London, on 06/25 - with the Lucre tour marching on to Stockholm the next day. Jones does seem to have a strong connection to his native city.
On April 18th, Slash played at the Budokan in Tokyo with Nile Rodgers and his reformed band, Chic. The show also featured another Duran Duran member Simon Le Bon; it would end tragically with the death of Rodgers' collaborator, Bernard Edwards. Following the tour, Slash continued to work with Rodgers and recorded the soundtrack of Curdled in Madrid, as the film itself premiered before he'd officially left the Guns.
By the fall of '96, Axl announced he was ready to work again, which resulted in all absent players in the Guns camp to be called back into the fold by order of the almighty Geffen. The Neurotic Outsiders had firm time-locks in their touring itinerary; Filthy Lucre would go on consistently from early October to early December, which would make Matt and Duff very much available in any case. But the Sex Pistols were having a break during September, which was when the dutiful Steve Jones wanted to tour with his other band.
In August/September, Axl, Slash, Duff, Paul Huge, Matt and Dizzy convened for three weeks worth of jams - or rather, appeared sporadically, if one takes Slash's version into account. Slash, Duff and Matt were all excited about the material, they had around seven songs in the ready, mostly Axl's material, which he'd no doubt built during the band's downtime during the past months. Sometimes Axl was on guitar, other times it was Paul. The material was hard-rock; short, angry songs, which does seem to reflect the atmosphere of the studio at the time. A tour was talked about to begin in January '97, with a record following suit in the coming months.
Once everything was superficially going well, everybody made the blunder of a lifetime - Axl and Slash were left to their own devices to write the remaining seven songs to round up the next GNR studio album. Slash, Axl and Paul didn't mesh, which is why Slash finally left The Complex feeling completely miserable. Matt and Duff came from their tour in late September, aware of the situation. Slash never came back to work with the band after those initial three weeks, and would confirm this in an online chat two weeks before Axl sent his fax over to MTV.
Since the fax is scarcer then hen's teeth nowadays, I'll copy it here for the time being.
******************************************************************
The fax Axl sent to MTV to tell Slash's out, October 30, 1996.
LIVE!!!! From "Burning Hills", California...
Due to overwhelming enthusiasm, and that "DIVE IN AND FIND THE MONKEY" attitude....
#1. There will NOT be a Guns N' Roses tour.
#2. There will NOT be an official Guns N' Roses web site.
#3. There will NOT be any NEW Guns N' Roses videos.
#4. There will NOT be any new Guns N' Roses involved merhandise.
#5. There will NOT be a Guns N' Roses Fan Club.
#6. There will be a new Guns N' Roses 12 song minimum recording with
three original "B" sides.
NOTE: If all goes well this will be immediately repeated.
#7. However*******Slash will not be involved in any new Guns N' Roses endeavors? as far has not been musically involved with Guns N" Roses since April 1994 with the exception of a BRIEF feel period with Zakk Wylde and a 2 week initial period with Guns N' Roses in the late fall of '95. He (Slash) has been "OFFICIALLY and LEGALLY" outside of the Guns N' Roses Partnership since December 31, 1995.
***************************************************
Nothing here is Subject To Change
Without A PERMANENT SUSPENSION
Of the "Pseudo Studio Musician Work Ethic"
SINCERELY,
W. Axl Rose
Michael "Duff" McKagan
Big FD Ent., Inc.
And that's about the size of it. I wasn't there, but that's the story I picked up.
#663 Dust N' Bones & Cyborg Slunks » Mike Monroe reminisces on time with Guns » 905 weeks ago
- sic.
- Replies: 2
Hanoi Rocks vocalist Mike Monroe was recently interviewed to a Finnish magazine, Seura. In the interview, he touched base the ever-present subject of HR drummer Razzle and his unfortunate death in '84, along with the recent patch-up with lead guitarist Andy McCoy and the reformation of Hanoi. He also shared some stories about his solo years, when he was most directly affiliated to Guns.
Looking back, Monroe feels that sharing the stage with Guns N' Roses and Ronnie Wood at Milton Keynes, UK (05/30/93) was one of the finest hours of his solo career.
"I was in Finland to attend my grandmother's funeral. Suddenly Slash calls me, asking me to come over to London and record a single for the film soundtrack of Coneheads [The song was a Steppenwolf cover, Magic Carpet Ride]. GNR was throwing a gig at Milton Keynes at the time, so I ended up playing a 5-10 minute solo to Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Axl just quipped me with "Have fun, Mike!" It was a lot of fun, as was the long talk I got to have with Ronnie afterwards."
- Seura (in Finnish)
I bumped into Mike Monroe a few weeks ago, no big surprise as we live in the same city. Still deceptively skinny, heavy on eyeliner and wearing a leather jacket spiky enough to suit any biker, Mike caught my eye with those pitch-black ear muffs.
Better cool than chilly! 
#664 Re: Dust N' Bones & Cyborg Slunks » JETBOY Guitarist Says SLASH 'Contradicts Himself' In His New Book » 905 weeks ago
Man in the Meadow, from Duff's Believe in Me, is apparently a tribute to Todd. It was written by Duff and West Arkeen.
Another interesting piece of glamrock history is that Todd was replaced by none other than Sam Yaffa of Hanoi Rocks, as his band was recently dismantled following the tragic death of their drummer Razzle (due to the reckless DUI by Vince Neill). While Yaffa left Jetboy in 1990, he's been recently filling another late bassist, Killer Kane of the New York Dolls.
It's a small world, alright!
#665 Re: Guns N' Roses » new Baz interview..talking about Axl/GnR again » 905 weeks ago
madagas, you cad! How dare you hide behind your legal eagle banner and leave me to suss out the ill-logic of Axl and his crooked cohorts by myself!
We will take on the job, uncover new avenues of information in this scandalous saga and offer a first-look deal for Beta, who can prevent a full-on release of the complete document and the catalogue of sources in both printed and electrical form by supplying the project contributors with final studio versions of various unreleased songs. The tentative list of demands includes titles such as Prostitute, Sorry, If the World and The General.
During the intermission, tea will be served in the Blue Room, whilst I entertain our entourage by reading aloud from an unabridged transcript of the Watergate tapes.
#666 Re: The Sunset Strip » Hellraiser remake (2009) » 905 weeks ago
Revelations is a worthy Clive Barker news outlet, and has been tracking this project since its initial announcement. While the release date is currently up in the air (some folks holding onto 09/05/08, whereas others claim it'll be 01/09/09), there's no doubt the Hellraiser franchise, while finally receiving some legit development time and money, is currently tossed back and forth between various screenwriters and the Weinstein bros., while everybody's waiting for the whizkid who'll figure out the Lament Configuration.
In October '06, Barker came aboard to pen the script. Judging by his further comments, he spent the end of the year focusing on other things and started working on it only after The New Year.
"The Hellraiser treatment has been signed off on by Miramax. They have in their hands and they like it" - Barker, 03/26/07
That wasn't a script, more of an outline as to what film would be.
"We are actually writing the script right now and we don't want to remake exactly the Clive Barker movie. We have met Clive and told him what we want to do with Hellraiser and he said, 'It's fucking good do it!' We are happy to have his benediction. It will not be a remake. It will still be called Hellraiser and it will have a new Pinhead." - Alex Bustillo, 10/11/07
Bustillo and Maury were French filmmakers riding the Haute Tension-like hype of their local genre offering, Inside (À l'intérieur). At this point, Barker's treatment is out. Whether he ever fleshed it out to a screenplay is unknown, but he magnanimously promises to supervise the project.
"I will watch over two Frenchmen who will remake it and only because I think they are two very splendid young men who made a fucking great movie. [...] I think it's all the more reason that they remake it; that they don't take my version of the story. I had some specific suggestions, which I don't want to spoil for you or anyone else, about how things might be taken up a notch or two. [...] My commitment to being involved was really based on these guys who had a bloody good idea that had nothing to do with what I had in my head." - Barker, 11/07/07
Of course, by press time the Writers' Guild had began their strike and Hellraiser bit the bullet. I'd imagine Bustillo and Maury had joined WGA upon signing a deal with Dimension and thus, had their freshman project stopped dead in its tracks. Welcome to Hollywood!
A week after the strike is finalized, new writers are announced. Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who wrote the original horror movie Feast, have already churned two in-production sequels, along with the already released Saw IV and the inevitable Saw V. So I guess it's inevitable they'd be taking a stab at Hellraiser at this point. Their recent track record has shown a notably fast pace, and Dimension seems to want a produceable script rather soon, apparently from someone that'll arguably understand the semantics of an American audience better than Barker or the French.
Doug Bradley remains on the sidelines, and has learned about this project the same way as the rest of us. His best bet to be involved was when Barker had a hands-on approach. Now, the casting of Pinhead'll be anyone's guess.
#667 Re: Guns N' Roses » *FALSE* "The Collective's" unofficial statement regarding C.D. » 905 weeks ago
If that 'memo' is from Interscope you can call me Jimmy Iovine.
It makes it sound like they're all a big family down there and that everything from day to day is about Axl.
Particularly when former Interscope artists like Trent Reznor have been vocal about the labels politics regarding the artists leaving a lot to be desired. While Jimmy Iovine, an industry veteran, may be a stand-up guy, he unfortunately cannot represent the entire company. He's a part of the system, although a more influential part than most.
The language used in this memo is something Merck would've used (and he did), because a manager needs to stand by his client no matter what. Interscope people would be more interested in how on earth they could sell one to three albums of original material with an exceptionally big production budget, particularly in the current day and age, when the compact disc as a medium is slowly dying.
The Madagascar quotes are something used in an attempt to gain credence, as Tom Zutaut just recently told Classic Rock there was some uncertainty concerning them. Problems with clearing the licenses are nothing new in the grand scheme of things, and I'm not surprised Axl and co. had left it for so long. While it may be stupid considering that there's always the possibility that the rights to one or more samples cannot be secured, they've always had more immediate problems to consider, like finishing the album.
As for Baz, he has his own label (the quaintly named Get Off My Bach Productions), which signed a partnership deal with Merovingian Music (a daughter company of EMI) to release and distribute Angel Down. Unless Baz personally has a problem with himself being on CD, the memo writer is well off the mark. Other people participating in the CD sessions on a regular basis (aside Brian May) have been contracted to GNR, which means all their contributions are owned by whomever picks up the studio bill - either the label or Axl.
If Universal/GNR have had legal wranglings with Bucket over the use of his material, one has to ask what sort of a contract he was on, anyway. "Come down to the studio any time you want, play whatever you want, tour with us if you feel like it, cash the cheque and we'll call you back if we'll use your contributions, ok?" Sorry. If Bucket would've had even the slightest opportunity to veto his recordings from appearing on CD, the GNR/Universal legal department aren't worth a damn.
Lastly, what is Universal suddenly doing helping Axl around and investing more money to the CD project through legal inquiries and such, while their line has for years has been that 'Axl's the one who'll finish the album, no matter the cost'. Had this so-called memo come from a party like LL Management with some additional fact-checking, I might've actually raised an eyebrow.
It didn't, so I won't.
Put this one in the books under BS.
#668 Re: The Sunset Strip » Wes Craven to return with "25/8" » 906 weeks ago
How about "The Serpent and the Rainbow"?
An interesting failure, if you compare it to the original writings of ethobotanist Wade Davis. Passage of Darkness, a journal-like scientific breakdown of the zombie powder, is riddled with case studies such as the one of Clairvius Narcisse, the Haitian man who literally rose from his grave. Davis' 'just the facts' narrative also describes the Haitian society structure (built upon Vodou, their secret religion of the past centuries) quite vividly, and overall manages to paint a picture far more haunting than what the movie can ever hope to be.
Saw it some time ago after a long while and felt terribly sorry for old Wes. Davis would've been served better had he been modeled as a mix of Charles Darwin and Sherlock Holmes, instead of trying to shoehorn him into an Indiana Jones mold.
Same problem with People Under the Stairs. That's a bunch of fun ideas strewn together into something that barely even resembles a coherent plot anymore. Too bad, since I loved seeing Big Ed and Nadine from Twin Peaks in it.
Shocker and Deadly Friend... don't even start.
Wes is a hit n' miss kind of filmmaker, if he nails it, he really hits a good one. But for any film memorable for its merits, there's an interesting failure. And for everyone of those, there's a Vampire in Brooklyn. And for any of those, there's a flashback - as experienced by a dog!
#669 Re: The Sunset Strip » Wes Craven to return with "25/8" » 906 weeks ago
Craven has created a genre-shaping feature each decade so far since the 70's. First there was Last House on the Left, then A Nightmare on Elm St., then Scream. As Cursed and RedEye don't count, I've been looking forward to what he still has in store. If 25/8 makes it for a 2008 release, that'll enforce another pattern. New tentpole release every 12 years ('72, '84, '96, '08).
Numerology's on your side, Wes! 
#670 Re: Guns N' Roses » AXL ROSE Negotiating For More Money Before Releasing 'Chinese Democrac » 906 weeks ago
As of right now, GNR is with the same company it has been for the past decade.
As of right now, the album that was finished last year should come out this year.
As of right now, Mysteron's certainly on top of things. 
