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BETTER (Remix)

2012-02-11T06:26:00.001-05:00

Guns N' Roses - Up Close and Personal

2012-02-10T21:29:00.004-05:00

GN'R will play the first of seven intimate small club shows and the first of three shows in New York tonight at Roseland Ballroom.

We'll keep you updated here with the latest developments as they ... develop.

Tour Dates:

February 10 - Roseland Ballroom - New York, NY
February 12 - Terminal 6 - New York, NY
February 15 - The Ritz (Webster Hall) - New York, NY
February 19 - House of Blues - Chicago, IL
February 21 - The Fillmore - Detroit, MI
February 23 - The Fillmore - Silver Spring, MD
February 24 - House of Blues - Atlantic City, NJ

Slash: New Album Release Date Announced

2012-02-07T14:11:00.007-05:00

via Blabbermouth
Slash — the iconic, Grammy-winning rock guitarist and songwriter — is currently in a Los Angeles studio putting the finishing touches on his second solo album. The as-yet-untitled disc is due out May 22 on Slash's own label Dik Hayd International distributed through EMI and will follow his 2010 debut album, Slash, and his November 2011 first-ever live solo album, the two-CD/DVD set Made In Stoke 24/7/11. Notably, the Slash album debuted on The Billboard 200 chart at #3 (#1 on the Rock chart, #1 on the Independent chart, and #1 on the Hard Music chart). Digitally, the album also became the #1 overall digital album and hit #1 on iTunes in 13 countries. Internationally, the disc achieved Top 5 chart positions in over a dozen major territories, hitting #1 in both Japan and New Zealand.

For the new album, Slash — along with and his bandmates Myles Kennedy (vocals), Brent Fitz (drums) and Todd Kerns (bass) — teamed with producer Eric Valentine, who also produced the Slash disc. All the songs were written together by Slash and Kennedy, and cameras have been rolling throughout the entire making of the album. Check out exclusive behind-the-scenes footage airing weekly beginning today.

YOU CAN PRE-ORDER THE CLASSIC ROCK FAN PACK EDITION OF SLASH'S NEW ALBUM HERE.

A question-and-answer session with Slash about the new album follows below.

Q: Looking at all your Twitter updates, you sound really pumped about the new disc. This time around, you and Myles wrote all the songs and he sings lead on all the tracks. What inspired this scenario since your debut solo album featured multiple vocalists (including Myles on two songs)?

Slash: Well, having Myles sing on the first record inspired me to take him on the road, then taking him on the road inspired me to have him sing on the whole record. So yeah, the tour last year definitely inspired the decision for him to sing on the new record. He has a really broad range. He is just very musical as far as his melodic style is concerned and he's also very lyrical and just a really powerful singer. There's a lot of positives about the way he sings.

Q: Perhaps you want to talk a bit here about your other bandmates and what they each bring to the sound?

Slash: There's Brent who is probably one of the best drummers I've ever played with — he has a great way of playing very powerful rock n roll while still being able to keep it behind the beat and sexy. And then Todd has got to be one of the most overall talented musicians I've worked with, just a really great bass player. Todd's very quick in the studio, a quick learner and creative as a writer; on top of that, he's also a great singer.

Q: Beyond you and Myles writing all the songs and Myles singing all the leads, in what other ways is the new album perhaps different from your debut solo album?

Slash: Myles and I basically collaborated on the new material. The main thing is we wrote these songs together which is a big difference from the last album where I wrote each song with all of the different collaborators. The whole creative nucleus is between Myles and me. On top of this, the whole rhythm section of Brent and Todd brings something to the table and changes the dynamic completely from the last record — it's much more cohesive.

Q: With your record company Dik Hayd Records, you remain an independent artist and work with major companies for distribution. Can you talk about how you as an artist benefit by this scenario in these interesting times for the music industry?

Slash: It puts me more in the driver's seat of how I want to market the record, but even more importantly than that, I'm not giving half of everything that comes in on the album to the record company.

Q: Eric Valentine returns as producer for the new disc. What do you feel he brings as a producer to these songs and the overall approach?

Slash: The first thing we always talk about with Eric is he's an extremely gifted musician, but he is basically as talented an engineer, so it makes for a great combination as a producer. As a person he's easy to work with — he's very patient and he lives and breathes what he does. That's a lot like how I am, we're similar; I can call him at any moment and ask him a question or share an idea I have with him. He's always in his element and it's something that I can appreciate.

Q: You toured the world seven times with the last album. What are your tour plans for the new album?

Slash: Right now we're starting off with radio shows in the states and then we'll do as much of Europe as possible. We'll also tour in Asia and Australia, and try to hit South Africa this year as well as India and a couple other spots. Trying to just broaden our horizons a bit.

Slash 2012 Tour Dates
SLASH: New Album (2012)

"I Want My MTV" Interviews [Part 2]

2012-02-02T12:51:00.000-05:00

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution - Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum's new book collects interviews with over 400 key people from MTV's Golden Age. In the following excerpt (part 2 of 2), Steven Adler, Sebastian Bach, Nigel Dick, Doug Goldstein, Dave Grohl, Courtney Love, Alan Niven, Tom Petty, Riki Rachtman and more dish even more dirt on Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion video trilogy, their spats with Vince Neil and Kurt Cobain, and the beginning of the end ...

TOM PETTY: I played the VMAs with Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin from Guns N Roses — we did "Free Fallin" and "Heartbreak Hotel." I thought it was kind of a shaky performance. We didn't get a lot of rehearsal time, because Cher was doing a big production number and there wasn't much time for us.

As we finished "Heartbreak Hotel" and walked offstage, Vince Neil from Motley Crüe came running out of the wings and decked Izzy, hit him right in the face. Our sound guy, Jim Lenahan, was walking off the stage with us, and Lenahan was like, "I don't even know this Izzy kid, but he's with us," so he decked Vince Neil. Izzy was getting a lot of black eyes those days. I think he already had a black eye before Vince hit him.

SEBASTIAN BACH: I was on the side of the stage when Vince punched Izzy. Vince's gold bracelet flew off his wrist as he cracked Izzy. It was a big chunk of gold. Vince was huffing and puffing, and I was like, "Dude, I've got your bracelet." He's like, "You can have it, man." In the day, if somebody said something bad about your band, you were obliged to punch him. It was considered totally appropriate.

ALAN NIVEN: Izzy and I were walking offstage when Vince came out of the darkness and whomped Izzy on the face, at which point I threw Vince to the floor and put my left hand around his throat. I cocked up my right arm to bury in his nose, and had a moment of lucidity where I looked at his rhinoplasty, said, "That's too expensive," and let him up. Then Axl ran all over the building, trying to find Motley and extend the dialogue further. It was very timely that Nikki had jumped into a limo and fled the scene.

RIKI RACHTMAN: Put it this way, if you said "Riki Rachtman," you thought Guns N' Roses. If you said "Adam Curry," you thought Bon Jovi. You wouldn't picture Adam waking up in a gutter, but you knew I did. You wouldn't picture Adam getting arrested, but I did. I was living the rock n' roll lifestyle without ever picking up an instrument. I opened a club called the Cathouse in September 1986, a mile or two from the Sunset Strip in LA. I hate saying it, because I'm patting myself on the back, but it was the most important rock club of that era. Everyone played there: Guns N' Roses, Faster Pussycat, Black Crowes, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains. I didn't see Headbangers Ball, because the chances of me being home on a Saturday night were nil. On Saturday, we got hammered.

I was with Guns N' Roses when they got their record deal, all the way up to recording Appetite for Destruction, when all of a sudden they became the biggest rock band in the world. We'd see Adam Curry, and it didn't make sense for him to be on Headbangers Ball. So Axl said, "Do you want to be a VJ on MTV? I'll make a call." I walked into my audition with Axl. Would I have gotten the VJ job without him? I doubt it. I had no TV experience — I had drinking experience, that's all I had. I started hosting in January 1990 — I wore a Motorhead shirt and a studded leather jacket with a blue circle for the Germs, because I wanted to hold on to my punk roots. I still don't feel comfortable saying the word, but that show made me kind of famous.

TONY DiSANTO: When Guns N' Roses started getting some fame, we shot interviews with them at the Chelsea Hotel, and their energy was so I-don't-give-afuck, so punk rock. When Use Your Illusion came out, the next set of interviews was with Kurt Loder in Axl's beautiful LA backyard. His hair was blow-dried, his teeth were all perfect, and he looked like an angel. I was like, "Wow, they've sure changed."

ANDY MORAHAN: Two of Axl's favorite artists were Elton John and George Michael. Which was bizarre. As a matter of fact, he hated most other rock bands. If you spoke to him about Van Halen or Nirvana, he'd be spitting feathers, but when it came time to talk about Elton John, he'd go all misty-eyed. One of his favorite videos was George Michael's "Father Figure," and he wanted to make some big, epic narrative-driven videos.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: After Axl fired Alan Niven, I walked into Eddie Rosenblatt's office and said, "We're gonna make an expensive video." And he said, "Doug, we're out of the video business with you. You pay for your own videos. We'll front the money, but we'll take it back, and then you guys own the rights to your videos."

ALAN NIVEN: The videos that were done under my watch totaled something like $500,000, of which half went into "Paradise City." I was told it cost $1.25 million to shoot "November Rain," which to me is a preposterous waste of money.

STEVEN ADLER: I think that video would have been better if I was a part of it. But I'd been kicked out of the band for partying — and the biggest irony is, I was partying with the guys in the band.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: The videos caused tension in the band. Axl would just not show up for a day of shooting, so it doubled the cost. He did that on every video. Everybody else in the band was upset about it, and Slash was the only one who spoke up.

DAVE GROHL: When a musician starts to use the phrase "mini-movie" to describe a video, it's time to quit. Some videos I enjoyed just because they were train wrecks, like "November Rain." I looked forward to seeing that on TV because I didn't need those nine minutes of my life anymore.

DANIEL PEARL: Axl was as unreliable a person as you could possibly imagine, but at the same time he was a good benefactor. I did three big videos with Andy Morahan for Guns N' Roses — "Don't Cry," "November Rain," and "Estranged" — and each one cost over a million dollars, God bless 'em.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: Oh fuck. To be honest, I blank on the Use Your Illusion videos, because they all seem like the same video to me.

ANDY MORAHAN: Axl had written a trilogy of videos based around a short story by his friend Del James. We made "Don't Cry" the first video. Axl was undergoing regressive therapy, he'd gone through bouts of severe depression and wanting to blow his brains out, and his personal madness became part of the video's story line. Izzy Stradlin had left the band, and the cracks were starting to appear — the trilogy was Axl's way of saying, "I'm gonna take control here." Before we started those videos, Use Your Illusion was up to about 8 or 9 million in sales. After those videos, it went up to 22 million.

If I wanted to do a daylight scene, I'd have to keep the band up all night and shoot it first thing in the morning. They were like vampires. I had a day set aside for the graveyard scene. I had half of the LA County cemetery closed down, and a cortege and two hundred extras and four rain machines, and Axl didn't show up until it was dark. That's why the graveyard scene is at night.

PETER BARON: Andy Morahan shot part of "Don't Cry" on the top of the Transamerica Center in downtown LA. We had two helicopters. It was mayhem. We got in a lot of trouble from the city because we completely stalled traffic on a Friday night.

ANDY MORAHAN: Stephanie Seymour and Axl were lovey-dovey on the first video. Stephanie had no shame in cuddling up to Axl in front of me and saying, "Hey Axl, why don't you work with some really big Hollywood directors?" Thanks, Steph. Love you, too.

PETER BARON: When the "Don't Cry" shoot finally ended, I got on the freight elevator by myself to go down to my car. I press the button, and just as the doors start to close, who walks in but Axl and Stephanie Seymour. And they proceed to make out. I'm not going to say he was dry humping her, but he was dry humping her. He just did not care that there was someone else in the elevator. He was a rock star, and he was having a rock star moment.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: Their relationship was tumultuous. Axl loved that girl to death. I'd say Stephanie was the unstable one in that relationship. The first time I met her, she opened the door naked. She goes, "No, you can come in." Sorry, gotta go.

ANDY MORAHAN: We couldn't figure out what we were going to do with Slash in "November Rain." I said to him, "Wouldn't it be cool if you walked out of the church into a completely different environment?" And he said, "Yeah, let's go to New Mexico and do that." So we did. Weirdly enough, Anton Corbijn was staying in the same hotel as us in New Mexico. I'd known Anton for a while, and I invited him to come to the shoot. After about a half hour he said to me, "Andy, this is incredible. You've got five cameras, cranes, helicopter, this big crew. Is this the whole video?" I said, "No, it's about twenty-seven seconds of it."

I've had calls from Sofia Coppola's people over the years asking to buy the original storyboards from "November Rain."

All three songs — "Don't Cry," "November Rain," and "Estranged" — are overblown power ballads. And all three videos are crazy. It was like Spinal Tap with money. I still don't know to this day why, in "November Rain," you see only half of Stephanie Seymour's face in the coffin.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: Axl jumping off the oil tanker in "Estranged," that's got to be the most extravagant thing I've ever seen.

BILL BENNETT, record executive: I got a notice at work one day that Sunset Boulevard was going to be closed all afternoon for a video, and thought, Who the fuck would close down Sunset? Guns N' Roses, that's who, for "Estranged." Their videos were late, bloated, and expensive. The band was so big, they did whatever they wanted.

ANDY MORAHAN: By the time we got to "Estranged," Axl had split up with Stephanie Seymour, and he said, "I never want a girl in a video again. I'd rather go out with a dolphin." Which is why I put dolphins all over the video. I've been asked by students about the metaphorical imagery in those videos, and I'm like, "Fuck if I know."

ANDY MORAHAN: I wanted to cry when I saw "Teen Spirit." I thought it was perfect. In a way, Guns N' Roses, myself, we became the dinosaurs, the kind of artists punk rockers hated. We'd become overblown and indulgent and kind of stupid, and then Nirvana happened and suddenly everything was grunge and cheap, and thank god for it, you know?

COURTNEY LOVE: We're sitting backstage at the VMAs. Everybody in the world is in this big tent, and there's a Guns N' Roses camp and there's a Nirvana camp. Literally, our roadies and their roadies are getting in fights. We stayed in our trailer most of the time because Kurt was sick, but we got bored, probably because there weren't any drugs to do, except coke, and we wouldn't have noticed that. So Kurt and I wander out to the main trailer with Frances, and Axl Rose comes over and he looks nervous. Everyone was watching us. I said something to him, I can't remember what, and he said to Kurt, "Get your bitch to shut up or I'll take you to the pavement." Kurt was holding Frances, and in a moment of pure brilliance he said to me, "Shut up, bitch," in the most deadpan possible voice. The whole room laughed at Axl. It was like your worst Freudian nightmare of a whole room laughing at you. I knew it would be a story I'd be telling many years later. Then Stephanie Seymour thought she'd be clever, and said to me, "Aren't you a model?" And I said, "No, aren't you a nuclear physicist?" At that moment, the world was definitely on our side.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: I'd love to straighten out the story about Axl and Kurt Cobain. Axl loved Kurt's music, but Kurt used to say not very nice things about Axl. And Axl could never understand why.

So we're walking along, it's me and Stephanie and Axl, and all of a sudden I hear this voice: "It's Asshole Rose. It's Asshole Rose." It was Courtney. Axl said, "Fuck off," and kept walking. She said, "Asshole. What are you doing, Asshole?" So finally, Axl was pissed off and he walked over to Kurt and said, "Look, if you can't shut that bitch's trap, maybe I should shut yours." The instigator in this situation was Courtney.

AMY FINNERTY: Courtney was obviously trying to rile Axl. He said to Kurt, "You better get a handle on your woman." So Kurt screamed at Courtney, "Woman! You better listen to me!" At which point we all cracked up. But when Axl walked away, Kurt quietly said, "Honestly, that was really scary."

DAVE GROHL: That was a really weird night. It felt like I was back in high school, and that's one of the reasons I'd dropped out in the first place.

AMY FINNERTY: After the show I went back to Nirvana's trailer. As I got there, I saw Duff McKagan and a couple of the guys from the Guns N' Roses camp rocking the trailer back and forth, trying to tip it over. They were trying to get back at Kurt for his comments. I started screaming at them, "The baby's in there, the baby's in there!" They stopped, but it was ugly for a second.

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution

"It was like Spinal Tap with money"

2012-02-01T00:57:00.005-05:00

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution - Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum's new book collects interviews with over 400 key people from MTV's Golden Age. In the following excerpt (part 1 of 2), Steven Adler, Sebastian Bach, Nigel Dick, Doug Goldstein, Dave Grohl, Courtney Love, Alan Niven, Tom Petty, Riki Rachtman and more dish the dirt on Guns N' Roses and their meteoric rise during the late 1980s ...

-- "WE'VE ALWAYS LOVED GUNS N' ROSES" -- CHICKS AND A SNAKE, HEADBANGERS BALL, AND THE RETURN OF HARD ROCK

No one was a bigger underdog than Guns N' Roses, five scuzzballs from LA whose caustic notion of hard rock had little to do with Poison or Bon Jovi. As with rap, MTV was afraid of the band. The network relented only under pressure from David Geffen, one of the titans of the record business, and ironically, Guns eventually became so prominent on MTV — in his memoir, guitarist Slash called MTV "a channel that helped us out, but that we didn't care for" — that the network hired a new VJ mostly because he came recommended by the band.

JOHN CANNELLI: I was taking a ride through Central Park on my ten-speed, and I put the Guns N' Roses cassette on my Walkman. When I heard "Welcome to the Jungle," I almost fell off my bike.

SAM KAISER: I had two right arms in the department. One was Rick Krim and the other was John Cannelli. John maybe had the best eyes and ears in the place. He was soft-spoken and dry, but he had a knack for picking stuff. When John spoke up, you listened. He brought us a video by Guns N' Roses, "Welcome to the Jungle," and I fell out of my chair.

TABITHA SOREN: The news department was a less important area in the scheme of the channel. MTV was just discovering Guns N' Roses, and they traded exclusive access to some A-list video for an interview with the band at CBGB. Nobody wanted to do it, so they sent me, with a crew. I was nineteen, and Axl aid, "Are you even old enough to be in here?" It was so exciting. Then I went home to my dorm room and went to sleep.

NIGEL DICK: I was strictly known as a pop guy. But I was a huge fan of Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, Bad Company, and Free, so getting to direct a Great White video was a breakthrough for me. And I was on my second Great White video when Alan,Niven, their manager, said, "I've got this new band called Guns N' Roses. They're hugely difficult, they don't want to work with anybody, nobody wants to work with them. Would you do their video?" I turned him down. A week later, Alan said, "Look, I can't find anybody to do it. You have to do me a favor." So I thought, What the heck, I'll make some extra money. I shot the second Great White video on, say, a Thursday and Friday, and shot "Welcome to he Jungle" on Saturday and Sunday. I honestly preferred Great White's music.

STEVEN ADLER: Guns N' Roses, At the time, nobody wanted to have anything to do with us. They were afraid one of us was gonna die, or kill somebody. Even recording Appetite for Destruction, we had ten different producers who said, "No way, I already heard about those guys." And then, of course, they all regretted it.

ALAN NIVEN: The budget that Geffen afforded for "Jungle" was insufficient for us to realize the storyboard we wanted, so we piggybacked it onto a Great White shoot, so we could have a four-day rental in equipment and staff.

NIGEL DICK: The video for "Welcome to the Jungle" was Alan Niven's idea. He told me, "Axl will step off a bus, then he'll be sitting in a chair watching TV, and there will be all this horrible footage on the TV." The hardest part of a Guns N' Roses video was waiting for Axl to show up. He was always late. He had to be in he right vibe, and you couldn't get too pushy. You were always worried he'd have a tantrum and leave. After we did the close-up of him on a stage, he hid in he dressing room for two hours. He couldn't handle the shiny boards and the ights and the bounce cards. Suddenly, instead of a bunch of hot girls at his feet when he's singing, there were a bunch of aged film people with light meters. It freaked him out.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN, manager: Nigel was quiet and soft-spoken. If Axl was running two and a half hours late, Nigel was like, "Well, he'll get here when he gets here."

ALAN NIVEN: Everything of worth in a video is stolen from somewhere, so I stole from some cool movies. Axl's character is a corollary to Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy, who comes to a city that's a cauldron of false dreams. That plays beautifully into the scene from The Man Who Fell to Earth where David Bowie is in a motel out in the desert with a pile of TVs, trying to absorb information about the planet he's landed on. Then there's the scene from A Clockwork Orange, when they're made to watch all these insane images on TV.

STEVEN ADLER: Believe it or not, we couldn't find any girls to be in the video It was one night out of forever when no girls were around. So I called my roommate — her name was Julie, I couldn't tell you her last name — and she's the girl laying in bed with me while Axl watches the TVs. There was an X-rated part where I was making out with the girl, rubbing and licking her neck, her boobs were out and everything. When we went to Japan, I saw the video and they didn't cut out that scene. It was so great!

TOM HUNTER: When they submitted "Welcome to the Jungle," we accepted it for Headbangers Ball, which was typically what we'd do with a video that extreme. Axl was twitching in an electric chair!

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: MTV wasn't interested. Their response was "We'll play it two times overnight and see how it goes."

ALAN NIVEN: MTV didn't give a damn. Didn't care.

NIGEL DICK: Initially, they wanted to play it only once or twice after midnight Then we had to re-edit it, because there was a brief moment when a red soda machine appeared, and MTV said it could have been perceived as a Coca-Cola sign.

JOHN CANNELLI: There was controversy over how much to play "Welcome to the Jungle." Our GM, Lee Masters, thought we were playing too much hard rock. Lee and Tom Hunter, the guys with radio backgrounds, were afraid of the video. Tom got some pressure from Geffen, so we put it on the overnights, and all of a sudden we started getting requests. Then we played it in the afternoon, and from there it went through the roof. And I became GN'R's guy at the network. We did one of Axl's first MTV interviews at my apartment in Chelsea.

EDDIE ROSENBLATT: We had sold a couple hundred thousand albums and they still wouldn't play the video. I sent my weekly sales report on the album to Lee Masters, and I got on the phone and made him read it with me.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: The interesting thing nobody knows is that we'd been touring for a year and three months and had sold 150,000 units. Eddie Rosenblatt took Alan Niven to lunch and said, "Great first album, it's time to record another one." But Alan begged for the money to make the "Sweet Child O' Mine" video.

ALAN NIVEN: I looked at Eddie with total disbelief and said, "What do you think might happen if we got MTV's support?"

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: Axl was frustrated that "Jungle" wasn't getting played. He and Cannelli were great friends, so he couldn't understand why they wouldn't play it. He knew that, in order to be one of the biggest bands in the world, they'd have to be played on MTV. Axl loved Cannelli. He didn't care John was gay, that didn't bother him at all.

GARY GERSH: David Geffen and Eddie Rosenblatt didn't spend much time lisening to people bitch about what they weren't getting done. We all courted MTV, from David on down. It was different at Geffen — we didn't have a central video promotion person. It was like, "Get your fucking ass in there if you want your video played."

TOM FRESTON: The programming group decided to put "Welcome to the Jungle" on Headbangers Ball for starters. Not in regular rotation. It was getting played a couple of times a week. David Geffen called me and said, "Every time you guys play this thing at 3 A.M., our sales light up. Please leave it on." Normally, I would never tell the programming guys what to put into rotation. But this was David Geffen. And the song kicked ass. Guns N' Roses broke out.

TOM HUNTER: Freston called me and said we had to play "Welcome to the Jungle" in regular rotation. I said, "Have you seen the video?" He said, "One of the pieces of advice I got from Pittman was: When David Geffen calls, pay attention. And Geffen called me."

ALAN NIVEN: I love the euphemistic quality of that statement. In other words, David is an incredibly powerful person, don't piss him off.

TOM HUNTER: If we added it into regular rotation, we'd get shit from other managers and labels whose hard rock videos we wouldn't play. So I handwrote it into the programming log — that way, the add wouldn't appear in trade magazines. I gave it two plays a day in regular rotation. It got an amazing number of calls right out of the box.

NIGEL DICK: On the second Guns N' Roses video, "Sweet Child O' Mine," all the girls from the Geffen office wanted to be in the video. There's a scene with a guy on a dolly, pulling focus or something. He worked at MTV. Alan said we needed to put him in the video because he was part of the team that could make sure the video got played.

There'd been two previous attempts to shoot "Sweet Child O' Mine." We had the location and the crew booked, but the band was unable to appear because they were "ill." I was quite happy, because I got paid each time.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: Axl left some of the best of 'em waiting. He left the Rolling Stones waiting for a sound check. In late '89, Niven took Axl to do a pay-perview show in Atlantic City and he kept banging on Axl's door. Axl said, "The longer you pound, the longer I'm gonna take." Two hours later, Axl walks onstage and Mick Jagger is staring at him. And Keith Richards says, "I slept inside of a chandelier last night. What's your excuse?"

JOHN CANNELLI: I'm in the "Sweet Child O' Mine" video. I was there when they shot it, and they asked me to be in it. I'm like, "I can't be in your video. People already accuse me of being on your payroll." So they put me on a dolly and shot me so you can't see my face. I have a clear recollection: It was the same day we shot Cher for the final "I Want My MTV" ad campaign, and she won the Oscar for Moonstruck.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: "Sweet Child O' Mine" is about Erin Everly, so it was important to Axl to have her in the video. He didn't want to cause any shit with the rest of the guys by excluding their girlfriends: Angie, who was Izzy's girlfriend; Cindy, who was married to Duff; and Cheryl Swiderski, Steven's wife, are also in the video.

STEVEN ADLER: The girlfriends and wives, they didn't demand to be in the video, but it was something that wasn't said and had to be done. Everybody's got a wife or a girlfriend in the video — except Izzy, who's there with his dog. Or maybe that was his girlfriend.

NIGEL DICK: The idea for "Sweet Child O' Mine" was simple. After the first coule of takes, I thought, God, this is awful. It's so dull. Some execs from Geffen sere standing behind me, going, "This is so fucking cool." I'm thinking, I'm hooting a bunch of guys playing guitar. What's special about this? But for whatever reason, people thought it was the hottest thing in the world. There's nothng remarkable about the video at all, except, of course, for the band. Which is exactly how it should be.

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: MTV liked "Sweet Child O' Mine" a lot. Cannelli was on-site, which he seemed to be for most of our videos in the early days. He said, "It's a great video, Doug. We're going to play it." And the label relaunched "Jungle" after that. So they had two songs being played regularly on MTV. And it just took off.

NIGEL DICK: Soon everyone at MTV was like, "Yeah, we've always loved Guns N' Roses!"

ALAN NIVEN: On the first video, Axl didn't have confidence in his ideas or how hey could be applied. But once he'd done "Jungle," now he was David Lean. For Sweet Child," he had an incredibly involved story line that he wanted to apply ith his microscopic sense of myopic detail. So I asked Nigel Dick to give me a thumbnail budget, and he said it would be at least $250,000. I told Axl and said, By the way, we've got $35,000."

Nigel came up with a brilliant idea. Anyone on the set who had a spare five minutes could grab a windup Bolex camera and shoot B-roll. He had one of his staff sit there all night long, loading the Bolexes with 16mm film. Then we did two different edits of the video, so when "Sweet Child" toók off and the first video reached burnout stage, I dropped version number two to Cannelli and extended the life of the song at MTV. The first version was a mix of color and black-and-white, and the second was entirely black-and-white except for the final shot, when Axl fades into color.

JOHN CANNELLI: There was an element of danger with Guns N' Roses. They seemed fragile; there always seemed to be a crisis. But God, when you saw them perform ... I booked them for a concert called Live at the Ritz, and the show was amazing.

STEVE BACKER: Guns N' Roses gave MTV a second wind. Dana Marshall produced a live show with Guns N' Roses from the Ritz. I went to MTV and there must have been twenty people hunched into her office, just to watch her edit raw footage of Guns N' Roses.

ALAN NIVEN: MTV had a conflicted relationship with mainstream America. They were club-dwelling, Manhattan-living aficionados who were more comfortable with music coming out of London than with what played in Peoria or Birmingham. They played hard rock only because they wanted to pay the bills. It was selling records hand over fist at the time.

NIGEL DICK: "Paradise City" was the biggest video I'd ever done. It cost $200,000, $45,000 of which was a payment to the unions at Giants Stadium. They got $45,000 for carrying a hundred camera cases thirty yards from a parking lot into the stadium.

ALAN NIVEN: We went from $35,000 to a $250,000 budget, shooting with six cameras at Giants Stadium in front of 77,000 people. I wanted to show the scale of the band's phenomenon. I needed the audience. And Axl is resplendent in his brand-new white leather jacket.

PETER BARON: There's an "It's So Easy" video we never released. It had Erin Everly, Axl's wife, in bondage. She had a ball-gag in her mouth. It was a bad look for them.

STEVEN ADLER: I never saw that, but I'd like to. Erin was a fox.

RIKI RACHTMAN: Sometimes you can find it on YouTube. It was a great video, filmed at the Cathouse in black-and-white, with Erin shaking her butt. I have no idea why it wasn't released. Maybe it was the ball-gag.

PETER BARON: The first Guns N' Roses video I commissioned was "Patience." Alan Niven sort of co-directed those early videos with Nigel Dick. We shot the conceptual part at the Ambassador Hotel, and the performance in Hollywood. Of course Axl showed up about seven hours late. And Izzy was screwed up. Coke was dripping out of his nose, but he didn't realize it because his whole face was numb.

NIGEL DICK: Mostly what I remember about that video is a shitload of chicks and coke.

ALAN NIVEN: Izzy, who was in the depths of a cocaine habit that was destroying him, sat in a dark corner while we were filming. When we looked at the footage, Nigel and I agreed to minimize Izzy in the video, because he looked wretched. He got sober not long thereafter, but that video represents the nadir of Izzy's cocaine habit. There were other moments when Slash was in dire condition, and moments when Steven was in dire condition. Those were the three that had the biggest problems with excess.

STEVEN ADLER: I was sitting there rolling joints. That was my whole gig in that video: light incense and roll joints. As for Izzy, if you look at the cover of Rolling Stone when we were on it in 1988, he's sitting on the ground, and if you look at his wrists, you can see the track marks. He was doing drugs longer than anybody, but he ended up getting it together better than anybody, and then he left the band because he got clean and couldn't be around us.

JOHN CANNELLI: One night, I was hanging out with Slash and his girlfriend in their hotel room. It was late, we'd been drinking, and she asked if I wanted to end the night with them. I'm pretty sure she meant more than just sleep on the couch. Now, as far as I know, she was speaking only for herself. There's no reason to think Slash was in on the offer. But I said, "Gee, thanks very much, but think I gotta go now."

DOUG GOLDSTEIN: When you're dealing with two heroin addicts, a cocaine addict, and a bipolar lead singer, every day is mayhem. Well, three heroin addicts, actually: Izzy, too. But Izzy cleaned up midway through the Appetite tour. Rehab wasn't working for some of the other guys, so I decided to sit in a hotel room for two weeks with Steven and give him sleeping pills, and clean up his puke and excrement. We went to the Orange Tree Resort in Arizona, and Steven is doing good, he's about four days clean and sleeping until 4 P.M. because of the pills. I decide to go golfing, and when I get back to the hotel, there's four ambulances, two fire engines, about fifteen cop cars, and three hundred people standing in a circle. Slash is there, naked. And bleeding. He'd come in overnight, to bring Steven heroin, I think. I told my security guy, "Earl, go to my room and get my briefcase." I used to carry between $30,000 and $50,000 at all times, just for situations like this.

So I go, "Did anybody see anything here?" And a guy goes, "Yeah, I did." So I walk away with him and he goes, "I saw him throw a maid to the ground." I'm thinking, Okay, this is not good. I said, "I notice you got a little blood on your shirt. That's, what, a $2,000 custom shirt?" He goes, "No, no." I said, "Trust me, I know clothing. That's a $2,000 shirt." I bring out $2,000 and give it to him. "Think you're okay going on with your day?" He said, "Yeah."

The cops are cracking up because they can see I'm paying people off. I grabbed the hotel manager and said, "Give the maid $1,000 and an apology from us, please. What about the damage to the hotel?" He goes, "I'd say it was $700." I said, "So another $2,000 will take care of that. Do you feel like pressing charges?" He goes, "No."

This whole time, Steven is on his balcony, yelling at Slash: "You stupid heroin addict!" We got in the car as quick as we could and boogied. It probably cost $10,000, but I kept 'em out of jail.

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution

GN'R Plan New York Takeover With Historic Return To The Ritz

2012-01-30T06:45:00.002-05:00

via Blabbermouth
Seminal rock icons Guns N' Roses are set to invade New York during fashion week with a series of intimate shows then continue with additional stops through the northeast, announced today. Six shows confirmed so far including the historic return to The Ritz (now Webster Hall), 24 years after the filming of their heralded "Live At The Ritz" — the MTV concert continues to be one of the most sought after trades in bootleg circles. For the Webster Hall date, GN'R will celebrate their return by reclaiming the venue as The Ritz with signage and the name appearing on the marquee. The New York takeover in February marks the first time the band will appear at Roseland and Terminal 5, beginning on February 10, 2012. Full list of dates below.

Ticket presale is set for Tuesday, January 31 at 10:00 a.m. ET for the New York run, public on-sale is Wednesday, February 1. Chicago, Silver Spring and Atlantic City presale is Wednesday, February 1 at 10:00 a.m. EST, with public on-sale Friday, February 3. Tickets and VIP packages for all six dates will be available at GunsNRoses.com.

Tour Dates:

February 10 - Roseland Ballroom - New York, NY
February 12 - Terminal 6 - New York, NY
February 15 - The Ritz (Webster Hall) - New York, NY
February 19 - House of Blues - Chicago, IL
February 23 - The Fillmore - Silver Spring, MD
February 24 - House of Blues - Atlantic City, NJ

Slash NFC Championship Intro

2012-01-29T20:40:00.001-05:00

Via SlashParadise

In The Studio With Slash & Todd Kerns

2012-01-28T05:36:00.007-05:00

glide magazine
The bad ass in the top hat is busy. He is hunkered down in the Barefoot Recordings Studio playing guitar, as his crackerjack band-mates – Todd Kerns on bass, Brent Fitz on drums and Myles Kennedy on vocals – surround him as they record the old-fashioned way: on two-inch analog tape, a wet dream to those who love the pristine sound that comes from using this method over pro-tools modernity.

Last week, Kerns called in to give us a scoop on what has been happening inside that studio in the heart of Hollywood. The Dominator has been laying down some heavy duty bass lines for the boss and, as he notes, some damn good songs are coming to fruition. “We started demoing, just playing around with songs and things, riffs that Slash had brought in,” Kerns explained about the tunes in their virginal stage. “We had started playing with those on the road last year at sound-checks and rehearsals, so those kind of started to morph and metamorphosize into songs”. When Kennedy came in around mid-September while on a break from touring with Alter Bridge, “we went in and did three songs completely, with bass, drums, guitars and vocals.”

They returned to the studio in December where they “managed to do about a song a day and most of it live off the floor, the four of us. We were trying to get all the drums and bass and guitars, including guitar solos, live in one pass. We recorded five or six different passes of the same song. Then Eric Valentine [producer] had some room to play with it and if there was anything glaring from one take, he could kind of find an alternate take.”

Kerns has nothing but praise for Valentine, who produced Slash’s previous CD which featured the guitar god playing alongside such top-notch vocalists as Chris Cornell, Lemmy and Kennedy. “He’s a very, very talented man,” Kerns reaffirms. “We went through an entire phase where the three of us – myself, Brent and Slash – were sitting around arranging and rearranging and tearing songs apart and putting them back together. Then Myles came in and we started that whole process again cause he’s sort of putting in his two cents and then Eric comes in and we start doing that process again (laughs) … But it all came together really fantastic; like it’s huge and aggressive and it’s multi-colored at the same time. It’s not sort of one vein or one flavor; it’s sort of an array, a rainbow of rock (laughs)”.

Having covered the Slash tour on several stops across the country, talking with fans along the way, there was one thing that I heard repeatedly: that they would love to see THIS band record an album. Well, their wish has come true as the band continues to lay down tracks for an anticipated April or May release. I asked Kerns if there was a song that was so good it gave him chills while they were creating it: “There is actually a few like that but there is one in particular that we kind of worked and worked and pulled it apart and rearranged it and took this section out and took that out and it was one of the first things we ever brought in,” he said excitedly.

“The funny thing is, the main riff that Slash was playing on that song is no longer a part of the song, which is totally bizarre cause it was the kind of riff that made you go, damn that’s great … but that particular song was written and rewritten so many times that we’d take a stab at it and the three of us – just Slash, myself and Brent – would stab at it and we’d come up with something and feel good about it and then Myles came in and, well, it doesn’t work on top of that so let’s change that and we kind of juggled it around,” explains Kerns. “Then Eric came in (laughs). Just before we started recording, we were still kind of dealing with that song, to the point that it was almost abandoned. Then it sort of ended up being possibly the strongest song on the record in a lot of ways”.

Although he wouldn’t reveal the title of that song, he did admit that many of the tunes were still in coded names, waiting for Kennedy to put the lyrics into place. When I talked with him for my column in September, Kennedy admitted to sometimes overthinking about the worthiness of what he writes. “He’s incredibly hard on himself,” agreed Kerns. “We’ve had this conversation a few times where he’ll sort of bounce something off me and I go, ‘It’s great’ and he’ll go ‘Well, I’ve been doing this and I’ve been doing that’. And it sort of changes and he’ll come back around to the very first thing he came up with”.

Continued Kerns, “He’s a very talented guy. He sort of cordons himself off in the green room in the studio and is hiding up there by himself, scribbling and writing, and he’s like ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night cause I was up all night writing lyrics’. And I’m like, ‘You’re still writing lyrics? I thought you were done’ (laughs) But that attention to detail is probably why he’s so successful”.

Slash is also very involved with the recording of his new CD. Although some may see him as the poster boy for rock & roll’s wild side, this is not 1991 anymore and the monster guitar player is a clean and sober father of two boys. “Slash is one of the most intelligent guys I know,” Kerns told me when I asked what Slash was really like. “I don’t think people think he’s not smart but I think they have this kind of image of him as this sort of rock & roll, smoking, drugs, rock & roll guy, like he’s some sort of a rock & roll animal. I think that’s the impression people have of him and that is somewhat true, although all those things I just mentioned he doesn’t do anymore. I’m always kind of terrified that I’m spoiling his image somehow by saying that he’s a very thoughtful guy."

But how is Slash in the studio? Is he very vocal about how he wants things or is he more on the quiet side, contentedly playing his guitar? Kerns explained that he was actually a little of both. “A lot of what Slash is all about is he just wants to play guitar. When you know Slash, it’s weird to see him WITHOUT a guitar in his hands. You see him all day long sitting somewhere with a guitar in his hands playing and then you see him onstage playing and then you see him later on playing guitar sitting in the bus (laughs). In the studio, it’s a lot more focus and a command to making it the best it can be and he’s absolutely tireless. We all kind of joke how like we’re all getting hungry or have to go pee and he’s still going, ‘Hey, let’s try this one’. He’s so very focused and very sort of driven. He is a very laid back guy but he also knows what he wants.”

Kerns has called the recording of this CD “magical” and is excited to be a part of it. “Slash has been nothing but awesome to me”, he explains. “He’s been very good to me. I didn’t expect us to have our photos in the live album, Made In Stoke. I didn’t expect us to have our photos in the DVD. I kind of thought, this is Slash’s band, it’s Slash featuring Myles Kennedy; that’s just the way it is. Over the duration of that I’ve watched my own profile get raised a giant percentage. So to me, it’s whatever Slash wants to do. If he decides tomorrow he’s going to get Paul McCartney to play bass, that’s just the way it goes (laughs). Initially, the whole thing about recording an album with Myles didn’t have to be that we’re going to record an album with Myles and Brent and Todd; we’re going to use some session guys in LA and it’s going to be Myles and Slash. But he was awesome about it and let us be on the record.”

So while there are still some overdubs and background vocals and Myles’ lead vocals left to lay down, Kerns believes they will be all done in February. And then “we’ll be out in the spring for sure. I haven’t heard anything official but that’s the plan. I’m assuming Europe and all will be the initial thing cause there’s all the festivals in the summertime and then after that, I haven’t heard anything concrete yet. But I know Slash well enough and he said the other day, ‘I want to be out on the road for at least a year’ and I was like, ‘cool’. I’m sure 2012 will be busy and then probably a chunk of 2013 as well”.

A date in Toronto for March 23 sold out in twenty minutes, proving that the fans are hungry for a new dose of Slash with his stellar band. Get ready, folks, they’re on their way.

Slash 2012 Tour Dates
SLASH: New Album (2012)

Matt Sorum on the Last Days of GN'R

2012-01-28T05:00:00.004-05:00

More HERE

SLASH: New Album (2012)

2012-01-25T23:18:00.019-05:00

"Slash feat. Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators"

12 songs on the record + 6 bonus tracks
Unofficial song titles:

-Bad Rain
-Halo
-Standing in the Sun
-Far and Away

Recorded: June 14, 2011 - February 6, 2012
Release date: May 22, 2012

The band: "Slash feat. Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators"

Slash (guitars),
Myles Kennedy (vocals, guitar),
Todd Kerns (bass, vocals)
Brent Fitz (drums, piano)
Eric Valentine (production, recording, mixing and mastering)

YOU CAN PRE-ORDER THE CLASSIC ROCK FAN PACK EDITION OF SLASH'S NEW ALBUM HERE.

"What happened to sex in Rock & Roll? It's pretty much disappeared. What up with that? This next record will be a shag-a-long record. And heavy too."

"We're just going for the one take that sounds good, so my solos are more raw, probably sloppier in a way, because they're very spontaneous to the point where it's in the heat of the moment."

"Everything is being played live with the music tracks -- the solos, everything. We're trying not to overdub extra bits. So if there's a solo, I'm playing on one side, Myles Kennedy's rhythm track is on the other."

Slash Twitter
Todd Kerns blog

Slash 2012 tourdates
Slash setlists
Slash 2010 album

Guns N' F'N Roses Finally Release "Estranged"

2012-01-20T13:59:00.007-05:00

After many delays, GunsNFNRoses have finally released their cover of "Estranged," the first in a hopeful series of Guns N' Roses covers.

Before release, the track had been given the nickname as The Chinese Democracy of Internet Fan Forum Covers for it's large number of personnel and delays. We hope you enjoy the track, and any future releases.

Thanks are to be made to everyone involved, however big or small a part they played, and to evader for mixing the track.

Estranged (GNFNR Cover).mp3

Mendigos del Paraiso play Slither / If the World

2012-01-18T06:18:00.002-05:00

Original here:

Download the entire Chinese Democracy Revisited album here: [DOWNLOAD]

Axl Rose vs. Guitar Hero Court Date Moved to May 21

2012-01-16T07:38:00.002-05:00

Thanks to FunkyMonky at HTGTH

Case Number: BC450057
W AXL ROSE ET AL VS ACTIVISION BLIZZARD INC ET AL
Filing Date: 11/23/2010
Case Type: Fraud (no contract) (General Jurisdiction)
Status: Pending

Future Hearings
02/08/2012 at 01:30 pm in department 23 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Mandatory Settlement Conference ((From Dept 33- Judge Palmer))

02/10/2012 at 08:31 am in department 33 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Motion (To Seal Documents)

02/28/2012 at 08:31 am in department 33 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Motion for Summary Judgment

05/11/2012 at 08:30 am in department 33 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Final Status Conference

05/21/2012 at 09:30 am in department 33 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Jury Trial (5-7 days time estimateC/F 1/23/12)

Dj ASHBA Has 12 Songs Written for New GN'R Album

2012-01-16T06:52:00.006-05:00

via Blabbermouth
Mama's Fallen Angels recently conducted an interview with guitarist Dj Ashba. You can now listen to the chat in the YouTube clip below.

When asked how soon fans can expect to hear a new GN'R album, Ashba replied, "I can't give anybody a definite date, because I'm not gonna give anybody false hope. But what I can say is [making a new album] absolutely is our main priority. And I cannot wait to get [working on it]. I mean, Axl has tons and tons of stuff recorded as it is. I mean, he sits there in his hotel room and he'll play me hours of stuff. And I've written over ten songs — I think 12 songs now — for him that he really likes. And I think now that we're off tour, we're gonna kind of start talking about, 'Hey, let's start piecing together what we feel would be the next best GN'R record.' It's absolutely everybody's goal to get out an album within a reasonable amount of time. That is everybody's focus."

Sixx: A.M. — the band consisting of Nikki Sixx, Dj Ashba and James Michael — has begun writing material for its third album. According to Sixx, the CD will "probably [be] a 2013 release considering the body of work we're setting as a goal."

7, the latest EP from Sixx: A.M., came out last month and sold around 2,700 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The effort contains acoustic versions of songs from the group's first two albums — 2007's The Heroin Diaries soundtrack and 2011's This Is Gonna Hurt.

Sixx: A.M. will be "doing a proper video" for its next single soon, according to Sixx. In addition, "tour options keep coming, but we haven't found the right fit yet to open up the conversations," Nikki writes on his Facebook page.

Sixx: A.M. recently revealed plans to film a video for the song "Skin" in the Los Angeles area. The band put out a casting call for people whom the song has affected personally because of their own scars — whether physical or under the surface.

In addition to Ashba and sole original member Axl Rose, the current lineup of GN'R includes guitarists Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal and Richard Fortus, bassist Tommy Stinson, keyboardists Dizzy Reed and Chris Pitman and drummer Frank Ferrer.

Chinese Democracy, the 2008 album released by the current edition of GUNS N' ROSES after a 15-year wait, was officially certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 3, 2009 for shipments in the United States in excess of one million copies.

Chinese Democracy was made available exclusively through Best Buy.

Discuss this article with other Guns N' Roses fans here.

Axl Rose vs. Guitar Hero Court Date Set for January 23

2012-01-15T06:21:00.003-05:00

Radar Online
Universal Music Group is owned by Vivendi,the parent company who also bought Activision in a merger that created Activision/Blizzard in 2007. Activision/ Blizzard are also the makers of Guitar Hero III, which in breech of agreement/features Slash.

UMG/ Activision knows full well that recorded music is now in a seemingly irreversable decline,and it has actually led to so-called "360 deals" by signing bands in which the label gets a cut of everything,be it ringtones, itunes, merchandise, concert tickets etc.

The court date is set for January 23rd this month.

COURT DOCUMENTS: Axl Rose Suing Guitar Hero Makers ("save-as")

Guns N' Roses lead vocalist Axl Rose has filed a $20 million lawsuit against Activision for the company's unauthorized use of the song "Welcome to the Jungle" in association with former band member Slash.

In court documents filed in Los Angeles and obtained by Radar Online, Rose accuses Activision of using Slash and his new band Velvet Revolver in the game alongside "Welcome to the Jungle," despite Rose's objections over this juxtaposition and repeated promises from Activision that Slash and Velvet Revolver would not be included in the game.

"[Activision] began spinning a web of lies and deception to conceal its true intentions to not only feature Slash and [Velvet Revolver] prominently in GHIII, but also promote the game by emphasizing and reinforcing an association between Slash and Guns N' Roses and the band's song 'Welcome to the Jungle,'" the court documents read.

The documents lay out a timeline of e-mails and personal assurances issued by Activision that Slash and Velvet Revolver would not be featured in the game.

At one point, Activision Executive VP of Music Affairs Tim Riley allegedly addressed online rumors of Slash's inclusion in the game by telling a licensing representative, "Come on... you can't believe everything you read on the internet."

Rose alleges that Activision continued to misrepresent its use of Slash's image and Velvet Revolver songs in Guitar Hero III through to the game's October 2007 release.

Rose also alleges that Activision's use of Slash's distinctive, top-hatted image in promotion of the game -- including a prominent appearance on the box art --was in violation of Rose's licensing terms.

After the game's release, Activision allegedly offered Rose a Guitar Hero game based around Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy to make up for the deception, which Riley allegedly apologized for, saying he "can't sleep at night" in a 2010 meeting with Rose.

Rose is seeking access to Activision's "wrongfully acquired profits ... in excess of twenty million dollars." Activision representatives were not immediately available for comment on the case as of this writing.

COURT DOCUMENTS: Axl Rose Suing Guitar Hero Makers ("save-as")

RIP Critter

2012-01-14T06:12:00.002-05:00

Jeff 'Critter" Newell died on New Year's Eve. He was one of the key engineers on Chinese Democracy.

You can check out a comprehensive discography of his work here.

Critter died at home. He was 45.

He produced the new Blink-182 album Neighborhoods, and was often considered the "fifth member of Angels & Airwaves," according to A&A lead vocalist Tom Delonge who said, "He was the most artistic and beautiful thing that could have ever happened to Angels & Airwaves. RIP Jeff 'Critter' Newell. AVA will never be the same...."

Axl Rose Performs His Civic Duty

2012-01-13T09:17:00.002-05:00

People
Welcome to the legal jungle, baby!

A source tells People that Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose has been serving jury duty on a civil trial in Santa Monica, Calif.

The rocker's rep confirms that Rose, 49, indeed has been performing his civic duty – having completed jury duty service on Tuesday "after serving four days of the trial process," says his rep.

"It was relatively painless," says Rose, who just completed a U.S. tour with his band last month. "I was fortunate that everyone in the courthouse and jurors were all really great, plus I got to see daylight from a different prospect."

Guns N' Roses will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, along with other artists including the Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

John O'Brien Benefit / Velvet Revolver Reunion

2012-01-12T22:59:00.014-05:00

Thanks -- as usual -- to FunkyMonkey at HTGTH

Setlist: Sucker Train Blues, She Builds Quick Machines, Slither, Wish You Were Here

(Slash played "Gotten" with Maroon 5)

From Duff's blog today

I am playing a show at LA's House of Blues tonight with the original formation of Velvet Revolver, which includes lead singer Scott Weiland. It is a long story, really, but the crux of it is that we are playing a benefit, with proceeds going directly to a friend's wife and her two children. When it comes to the welfare of kids, old grudges or whatever, are put aside. But the fact is that the re-formation of the five of us has got a lot of people talking. Good. Just as long as they buy tickets to this show, right?

Update Thread

"Guns N' Roses Reunion: A Timeline"

Slash 2012 Tour Dates

2012-01-10T18:28:00.025-05:00

"We're playing at the Phoenix Concert Theater, Fri, March 23rd in Toronto. 1st show of the tour. We're doing some asst radio fest dates in May. Will post soon. Waiting for Summer Euro dates. & beyond."

"Slash feat. Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators"

Feb 18 - Las Vegas, Nevada
Mar 23 - Toronto, Ontario
May 19 - Columbus, Ohio
Jun 8 - Download Festival, Donnington Park, UK
Jun 12 - Berlin, Germany (opening for Mötley Crüe)*
Jun 23 - Milan, Italy

*unconfirmed

Official • Pollstar • Facebook • MySpace • LiveNation • TicketMaster • Eventful

2012 tour update thread • new album 2012 • Slash 2011 tour dates

Guns N' Roses Chicago '92

2012-01-08T04:56:00.001-05:00

A video of this show was stolen from GN'R's video crew. Special guest performance by Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon. Before 'Live And Let Die,' Axl talks about the things he said in his Rolling Stone interview about his upbringing. After 'Civil War,' Axl says that he always sees the 18-25 year old "potheads" in the audience! Before 'November Rain,' Axl says, "I'm gonna play this song like they write Spin magazine - I'm gonna blindfold myself and jerk-off and see what comes out!"

Breaking News: Axl Rose Spotted in Santa Monica

2012-01-07T08:13:00.003-05:00

http://instagr.am/p/eu0vK/

One Woman's GN'R Quest

2012-01-07T05:01:00.000-05:00

The Reason Behind Velvet Revolver's One-Night Reunion

2012-01-06T21:07:00.004-05:00

Rolling Stone Exclusive
Guitarist Dave Kushner got the group back together to honor his late best friend
by: Steve Baltin

When Velvet Revolver – Slash, Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum, Dave Kushner and Scott Weiland – reunite for one show next Thursday at L.A.'s House Of Blues, it will be the result of Kushner. The band's guitarist brought the group back together to honor his best friend, musician John O'Brien, who was found dead at the age of 45 in his Chicago hotel room last August.

"I found out he passed away on August 20, and it was like out of nowhere," Kushner exclusively tells Rolling Stone. "Next day I was in shock and my wife said to me, 'You gotta have a benefit concert for his wife and you have to get Velvet Revolver back together.' That’s how it started."

He then approached the different band members. "We did a benefit show for this thing called Road Recovery – me, Duff, Slash and Matt – in New York, and that’s when I asked those guys individually if they would agree to do it," Kushner says. "Once they said so then I got in touch with Scott, and he agreed."

Kushner says the response was almost instantaneous from everyone, something he attributes to how loved O'Brien – a childhood friend of Kushner's – was in the industry. "[John] was just like a teddy bear. He was the most talented, softest, sweetest, most generous person I’d ever met. He was the brother I never had, and everyone knew him," he says. "I’ve known Scott for 22, 23, 24 years. So he’s known John since then, Duff and John had an amazing relationship, and Matt knew him too."

The concert will also feature Maroon 5, Sheryl Crow, Tom Morello, an appearance from Stephen Stills and more. That will take the pressure off all of the bands, including Velvet. "Because we hadn’t played with Scott in a long time I said, 'Look, let’s just do three songs.' It’s not too much of a commitment," he says. "So we just got a bunch of people, everyone will do three songs."

Kushner is well aware though that everyone will be watching the first time in four years that Weiland performs with the group. "I knew from the beginning it would be newsworthy, and that was kind of the plan," Kushner says. "If you’re gonna do this, you want to raise some serious money, then put all caution aside and say, 'Hey, will you do this?'"

All of the proceeds from the benefit will go to O'Brien's wife and family. "Unfortunately, John didn’t have life insurance at the time and he left behind a wife that's pregnant and a four-year-old son. That to me is the main focus of why I’m doing this," Kushner says. "I’m doing it so that this sells out and that money can go to her, period."

Although the guitarist is focused solely on next Thursday's gig, he understands that others are interested in what the future might hold for Velvet Revolver, but the five of them are taking a cautious approach to any further reunions. "We haven’t played together in four years, and so we’re really just like, 'Let’s see how this goes,'" he says.

And if Thursday's show does go well? "I know everyone’s got other commitments, but I think everyone’s like, 'Let’s get this thing done and get through this and then we’ll see.'”

Related Discussion: http://www.gunsnfnroses.com/index.php?/topic/10528-vr-to-perform-with-scott/page__view__findpost__p__128600

Axl Rose Talks Playing the Forum, Hall of Fame Gig, Reunion

2012-01-06T04:03:00.000-05:00

Early Saturday morning in Seattle, Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose sat down for a long, freewheeling interview after his band's three-hour concert Friday night at Key Arena. You can read a story about the exchange here, but left on the cutting-room floor was an hour-and-a-half of fascinating conversation in which a sharp, well-spoken Rose tackled many topics that fans have been discussing for years.

Over the course of the interview, which took place from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. in his dimly lit dressing room, Rose talked about the past, present, and future without pulling any punches. (So much so that we edited out some of the more potentially libelous business-industry accusations Rose leveled.)

Pop & Hiss will have a few more excerpts of the conversation in the days to come. Check back.

Los Angeles Times: Can you talk about the L.A. show at the Forum on Wednesday night?

Axl Rose: Well, LA will be interesting. I’m looking forward to it. We had a great time in ’06. We did three nights at the Gibson. But this year was very weird because the industry was trying to force us into a smaller show — just one, and then make it two. But the real thing about it is that the sound’s not that good at the Palladium — and why are we going down, when we can draw more? So we’re doing the Forum, but it really wasn’t done right. We had to fight for that. [Rose goes into a long tirade about specific industry executives.]

This whole tour is part of — it’s not like there’s a lot of money going to Live Nation or anything, but it’s part of how we worked out the settlement [with former manager and Live Nation exec Irving Azoff]. And I could have gone on to court, but that was going to block other things, so Live Nation's not getting paid, we’re not getting paid, but we’re putting it out of the way, so we did this tour. Then we get on the tour and find out that everything that was supposed to be done wasn’t done, and managers and agents are selling a show that was supposed to go on at 8 o’clock. They knew I was never going to do that.

And this lack of promotion is one reason I’m here? [Laughter]

Yeah, well, the show’s already what it is, so it’s not really about that. The show’s already basically sold, so ...

And you were talking about adding a second show?

Well, we were talking about it, but I got different numbers at different times from different people, and some of those came from our latest former manager, and they were ..., so we basically decided that we’re going to wait until later to do it right and deal with L.A., because I want to deal with L.A. There’s places I want to play. I want to play some of the clubs, some of the nightclubs, different places for fun, and I want to play different venues like we’ve done in New York.

And I know we can do it in L.A., but what happens is people are really good at saying what you want to hear. So you go, yes, yes, yes, yes, and then they do something completely different. "That’s awesome. That’s a great idea!" And then they do everything they can to block it and make sure it doesn’t happen. That really happens. To me, they can’t ... do anything and they don’t want to do anything unless they feel that they’re getting away with a scam. They can’t feel they’re doing something that’s legitimate, and feel that kind of pride, they have to feel like, I got it, I ... them over, da da da. And that’s their victory.

All these managers, they know one thing. They know that they can at least ... sell a reunion tour and get their commission. It’s just a phone call. It’s a half a day’s ... work, or however long they want to keep the bidding war going. They get their commission and they don’t care if it falls on its face.

Because, really, you can get guys from the "Illusion" thing, but the only thing that would make it would be Duff and Slash, really. It’s nothing against Izzy and it’s nothing against Steven, or anything like that. Steven may want it, but these guys I’m working with right now, they work really hard and it’s hard work. I’ve toured with the other guys and I’ve also seen what they’ve done since, and I just know the difficulties.

I don’t have an excitement to work with people that joined in the "Illusion" time. There’s behind the scenes that was really, really difficult there with different ones. So it’s not really even a full reunion. And these guys have been here a long time, whether the public knows it or not because we haven’t done the media like that. Tommy’s been on 14 years, Richard’s going on 11. That’s as long as Duff was in the band. Chris has been in going on 11, Dizzy’s on since "Illusion," Frank’s going on six, and so’s Bumble. These guys have been here. And DJ’s going on three.

Plus, we can have our differences, and everybody in the band can be like, ‘I don’t understand that guy’ and point at one of us, you know? But at the same time, we get along. I don’t have to tell these guys what to do onstage. I can suggest something at times, but that’s very little.

But it’s also that you’re clearly the boss in this band — it’s your band. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the case with the original lineup.

With live, it’s not really any different, because there was never really a fight about leading it live, because for whatever reason they were fine with whatever song I was going to do next, singing.

Congrats on the rock hall of fame.

Yeah, that’s a trip.

It’s a trip that it’s 25 years.

Yeah, it’s a trip that it’s 25 years, that I’m here and alive.

Congratulations on that too. Can you talk about how you found out?

[Rolling Stone co-founder publisher and rock hall co-founder] Jann Wenner was excited about it 11 years ago. So I was pretty sure he wanted it, because he was very excited in — when did I do the Elton John thing, was that '93 or '94? He was excited then. And he’s always been a fan, and at the same time Rolling Stone has done some of the worst damage ever.

I’ve got mixed emotions about what the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame actually really is, but at the same time, there’s a lot of people — the fans — that it just means something to them, and they’re happy. It’s like you won the Heisman or something. I have people of all ages — in Indiana, I hadn’t been there in 18 years, and you’ve got elderly TSA guys, a hundred pounds overweight, come up and they’re happy. So I don’t want to take that away from them.

I think about it in terms of ... when Michael Moore got up at the Academy Awards and said whatever about George Bush. People don’t want that associated with their awards shows, even if you have a big audience. In one way it might be right, but it usually backfires on whoever does it. So I really don’t want to spoil it for everybody else — and take the beating. [Laughs]

It is kind of a mixed blessing.

It’s a lot of people making money. Why do they get to decide? But it’s the same with Grammys or Academy Awards, who wins.

Full Article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2011/12/axl-rose-talks-playing-los-angeles-rock-hall-reunion.html
Related Discussion: http://www.gunsnfnroses.com/index.php?/topic/10352-best-news-in-a-long-time-for-those-of-us-who-want-new-music/page__view__getnewpost

What Could Have Been: Zakk Wylde Talks Guns N’ Roses

2012-01-05T05:45:00.003-05:00

Gibson
It could have been one of the most interesting heavy music collaborations in rock history: Zakk Wylde as a member of Guns N’ Roses.

And beyond that, it would have been a Les Paul-toting guitar dream team. And it very nearly happened in the mid-1990s. The rhythm guitar slot in Guns N’ Roses was in a state of flux after the departure of Izzy Stradlin, the tenure of Gilby Clark and the is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-band-member status of Axl Rose’s friend and former Hollywood Rose bandmate Paul Huge. Meanwhile, Zakk Wylde’s role as Ozzy Osbourne’s right hand man had officially come to an end when Ozzy’s No More Tours tour wrapped up in 1992 and the Ozzman entered a short-lived retirement.

Zakk released one album with his Southern rock-influenced band Pride & Glory before returning to Osbourne’s employ for the recording of the album Ozzmosis. But by the time Ozzy’s Retirement Sucks tour for Ozzmosis rolled around, Joe Holmes was in the lead guitar chair and Zakk was on the path that would eventually lead to the formation of Black Label Society.

So what would a Zakk/Slash guitar duo sound like in the context of Guns N’ Roses?

“It sounded like the riffs I write and the way I write, mixed in with the way the guys write, you know what I mean,” Wylde says. “It would have been like, when I was jamming with Slash and all the guys, even if I’m in the band there’s only one guy that’s playing the solos to ‘November Rain,’ ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ and all those classic songs. I’m not going to do anything there. But the future stuff that we would have been writing, it would have been cool! Because I love Slash’s playing and I’m buddies with him. It would have been cool, but with those guys there was nothing happening, so we were jamming but it wasn’t going anywhere.”

Slash ultimately left the band in 1996 to pursue his own path with Slash’s Snakepit (using songs he was working on for the next GN’R release), while Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum’s respective tenures in the band ended a few months apart from each other in 1997. The 2001 rebirth of Guns with players such as Buckethead and Robin Finck was still a few years off, but Wylde didn’t sit around waiting for another call from GN’R. And Ozzy moved on, too.

“That’s when Oz got Joe Holmes in the band, and I didn’t have anything going on,” Wylde says. “I just had all these songs lying around and I said ‘Y’know what? I’m just gonna start doing it. And that’s when Black Label was born. I decided to just do it myself.”

This story came full-circle in December 2011 when Black Label Society joined Guns N’ Roses on tour, and Zakk joined the band on stage at several shows to blast out an AC/DC cover.

“It was awesome, man,” Wylde says. “The first time we were there, Axl was like, ‘Dude, you wanna get up and jam? Look at the setlist, pick out the songs, whatever.’ I said ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ is pretty easy. Pretty much everyone all learns that one. So this way there didn’t have to be any band rehearsals, me sitting in with the band, you know. The GN’R songs are all already worked out, so I said why don’t I just get up there and jam out on ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’? And it was great, man. All the guys in the band are super-cool dudes, and I’ve known a bunch of them for a bunch of years. It was great seeing Axl again because I haven’t seen him since like 1995 when I was jamming with them. And he’s doing great. We had a couple of laughs talking about the same old ridiculous stuff about the music business, y’know. Music in general and just life in general. It was good catching up, and it was a blast playing on stage. And the crew guys were all super-cool dudes, so it was a good time, man.”

Wylde’s brief time with Guns N’ Roses in the mid-’90s didn’t lead to any material on the long-awaited Chinese Democracy album, but the guitarist appreciates what Rose achieved with the recording. “With Axl, I think that as far as the album taking so long, 17 years in between records, well if you don’t feel like putting it out, you don’t feel like putting it out. You can’t force anyone to do something they don’t want to do!”

Incidentally, Paul Huge (also known as Paul Tobias) eventually did go on to become a member of Guns N’ Roses for several years, playing on the band’s cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” on the Interview with the Vampire film soundtrack, co-writing “Oh My God” for the soundtrack to the film End of Days and playing live with the band in 2001. And Joe Holmes, a former student of Randy Rhoads, went on to serve as one of Ozzy’s longer-running guitarists, playing with the Ozzman for two stints: from 1995 to 1998, and again from 1999 to 2001.