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Re: The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00)
I agree there was never a vault, and it took me time to believe that, but in hind-sight I don't think that was ever the intention. Music artists, as i've seen, have a tendency to refer to songs from licks, riffs, piano diddies, and pushing them to the side to finish later.
Axl, as well as the band, could've very well had several bare bones ideas for some 70+ songs or so. But times change. Styles change. Opinions change. They could've worked up 70 songs, and scratched half of them as "going nowhere" or "not fitting" or "not interested anymore". And moving on.
Absolutely true, in fact Slash confirmed it when he stated that Axl often referred to a riff he'd ahve submitted as a song whereas Slash saw it as nothing more than what it was - a riff.
Re: The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00)
I think all the electronica stuff has been ditched, imo. The band live is getting more and more stripped down than what debuted in 2002. Even songs like The Blues had things pulled off for a more traditional sound.
I would bet Oh My God sounds much different now as does Silkworms. I think Axl said there was a new intro and more guitars on OMG and Silkworms has a new chorus. He's been in the studio very recently and in Vegas, who knows how much has changed sound-wise. But I would imagine all of the songs have evolved or been retooled, not just TWAT, IRS and The Blues, etc.
Yeah I would completely agree with this. The electronica stuff is fucking gone. Imo. I mean why would Axl want to do it? Bucket's gone. Brain's gone. Josh's gone. Robin's gone. I'm assuming Paul's gone. Do it because of Caram & Chris?
Nah. Even when they bust out Chinese Democracy, then roll into Jungle, it's jarring. It's like two different bands, two different entire energies. It's a momentum killer too.
I'm watching London 2012 tonight for the first time, and when they bust into Shackler's Revenge, it's... jarring. That's the only word I can think of. It's like the band is doing a cover... of a song they wrote, or at least half of it. At least Tommy, Dizzy, Richard & DJ's solo stuff melds in with the band currently. I watched Ron's solo, and it was like WTFx1,000,000. Chris looks totally bored by it, Richard is going through the motions like a robot, and only Frank seems to rally behind Ron.
So maybe all of the "we aren't recording" wasn't an Axl thing, but a band thing. Ron has a very eclectic taste in music, and his solos don't make up for his weirdness. His songs are more like comedy for shows on Adult Swim, than a guy coming up with legit ideas to merge into a new GN'R. I assume it's all tongue-in-cheek, or at least I hope it is.
The electronica stuff is just as out of place in 2015, as it was in 2005 frankly. It's been ten years since it was FIVE years out of date. The only guys still remotely recording that music are Zombie & Manson. Even Reznor has sorta moved on.
Which then lends the question, would GN'R re-record the record again to fit a more mainsteam pop-rock format, or has it already been re-recorded like that, thus the DJ remixes of Better and Ron's acoustic takes?
Either way the future would be with the sound of THIS band. Which could easily fit in with rock radio as of the current. Going back to the Bucket days is like... cool... but makes NO sense. A reunion with old GN'R would be MORE current than the 1999-2002 period.
Those songs are lost cuts at this point. I think at best Oh My God, Silkworms and others would be iTunes/Digital bonus tracks with purchase at this point.
Re: The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00)
I think the songs did get better after 99 when Bucket and Brain came on board. 2002-03 was the year to release the album. I have no idea what caused him to delay it. Most of the leaks made up the album.
Chinese Democracy
There Was A Time
Better
The Blues
IRS
Riad N' The Bedouins
Prostitute
Shackler's Revenge
Scraped (aka, Lies They Tell)
This I Love
Madagascar
If The WorldThese songs were all around back then. Those were all the initial Andy Wallace mixes, which imo, were way better than the released product. That would have been a solid debut album. Why it wasn't released is beyond me. He screwed himself royally continuing to tinker.
Yeah they were all around back then obviously but as we discussed immediately after CD's release, would the album have had a different impact/reaction? Even with the songs sounding better than the 2008 clusterfuck, we're still dealing with the same songs. The album would have sold a bit more at the time simply becausing free downloading hadn't yet reached the point it did years later. Media reaction may have been better as well just for the fact that Chinese Democracy had not yet reached the status of nothing more than a minor pop culture joke being followed by a few thousand people religiously. The elephant in the so called vault and that was gradually exposed to the world through years of sporadic tours and leaks is the fact that it had no hits, and constant tinkering on the same songs proved there weren't going to be any. Now everyone can say, "who cares! An album of epic deep album cuts is better than 'Axl selling out'". However, that isn't what everyone was saying during those years. Fans wanted(and expected) songs that were Cochise, Vertigo, and November Rain all wrapped in one. The band(and Merck) fed these illusions.
While I believe a 2001(or 2002) CD would have been much, MUCH better quality, I have a hard time imagining Better, IRS, or CD topping any charts regardless of the year it hits radio. Everytime a song leaks the excitement made us think, "this will put him back in the game", after about 4 or 5 listens, reality hits you and you realize, hmmm...probably not.
In hindsight, I don't think marketing new GNR with "the freak"(Bucket) a goth Finck, some respectable members(Stinson and Brain), and a few unknowns would have been a problem. The problem was the quality of the material and the fact that most of it was already dated the first day they walked into the studio.
I think Axl has a Soundgarden "Echo of Miles" sitting at home, but it's nothing more than that, and maybe an album of re-recorded GN'R classics with the different members. That's it. There is no mythical vault.
IMO, other than no release at all, an Echo of Miles is the only realistic thing to expect from Axl here on out. Different versions of the same songs, a handful we've never heard, some actual demos, and maybe a few covers. There's no point in 2015 and beyond of releasing ANY of that stuff as a proper album.
The electronica stuff is just as out of place in 2015, as it was in 2005 frankly. It's been ten years since it was FIVE years out of date.
Why he attempted to jump on a dead bandwagon while assembling a killer lineup will always be a brain teaser. It would be like Cornell joining Audioslave to record a disco album.
Re: The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00)
The most curious bits about someone at MSL's board meeting a Geffen employee date to this era.
-He said to the best of his memory, the band playing at the beginning of what would become Chinese Democracy sessions was Axl, Paul Tobias, Robin, Duff, Dizzy, and Matt. He estimated this was right around New Years of 1996. Duff was pretty much MIA until he officially left the band.
-Around 1998, Axl made a friendly competition among the band to see who could come up with the best riffs and songs ideas. He said there are at least "40 cds" of the band playing.
-Asking Axl about vocals was a "sure-fire" way to get kicked off the project. He said that the first time he heard some vocals from the album, however (around 1999) was one of the best and most memorable days of his career.
-When he left the project in 2000, he said there was a second album that was, at the band's own estimation, about 65% done.
Doug Goldstein figured CD was 95% done musically and 80% done vocally. The band was doing squat at the time. Axl was doing vocals.
The second album, two thirds down. 16-18 songs on CD. Sean Beavan said to have worked on about 35 songs at that point. Another 17-19 songs for CD2 , somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 of them done, at least, intstrumentally.
A total of 26 to 30 songs, perhaps.
Re: The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00)
Hmm interesting. I think it does go back to that theory that they've got another fully completed LP in-the-vault, and another either A) EP, or B) remix album.
'Cause they could release the remix album, throw on the remix Chinese songs, and throw on those straggler Chinese-unreleased songs, that don't make it onto Chinese II.
The question becomes do they just knock it all out with the Long Road Out of Eden 2-disc release, Disc 1--Chinese II, Disc 2--The Lost Sessions, featuring a handful of other new songs, with Chinese I remixes, Chinese II alternates, and a couple of live tracks/covers to pad it out.
Or do they trickle it all out over 2-3 seperate releases and mix the shit out of what's left, because it's painfully obvious at this point, Axl is in NO hurry to get back into a studio and build a new album from scratch. It seems he's just gonna ride these leftovers into either A) retirement, or B) reunion, then retirement.
- Me_Wise_Magic
- Rep: 70
Re: The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00)
Like I've said before many times. Axl is gonna pull a Brian Wilson eventually and just release all the sessions in a basic 2 disc or deluxe 4 disc special edition compilation. I just want to hear Soul Monster, Jackie Chan, and Atlas, dammit.
Re: The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00)
A recent Sean Beavan interview, good stuff on working with NIN and Manson. Beavan's the guy who mixed the Pretty Hate Machine demos, in case you didn't know 
You worked with Axl Rose and Guns on "Oh, My God" from the "End of Days" soundtrack and then the "Chinese Democracy" record?
He was really cool. I was there for two years and did 35 songs, haha. I was approached by Billy Howerdel from A Perfect Circle. He was doing some programming there with Axl and running one of the computers for it. Robin Finck was playing lead guitar and so the two of 'em kind of approached me to come in and help out and do some production for it. I brought in my friend Critter the engineer who had started engineering for them. Around that time, Chris Vrenna but Josh Freese started there who was a friend of mine.
A lot of people going in and out.
It was fun. I knew lots of people there and they knew me. Axl was really, really interested in working with me and doing some stuff together, which was really fun. Axl and I are the same age so we get along really well. We have similar influences.
What are those?
We're both big Alice Cooper and Queen fans. That was really fun. Then I got to become really, really, really good friends with Tommy Stinson who was playing bass. Tommy and I have become really, really close and he's part of my first LA family and made me feel good being here.
You have a good time doing the sessions for "Chinese Democracy" though they seemed to have lasted a while?
[Laughs] Oh, yeah. Totally. Axl is an incredible talent obviously. He was the only singer I've ever worked with where he came in and in order to warm up, he'd do a 45-minute stand-up routine, hahaha. The dude is amazing. Any joke he hears, he remembers perfectly and he's got a great delivery. He would just get in the vocal booth and then just start killin' it with jokes.
And for a bit of alternate history...
Todd Rundgren was really one of your heroes?
Yeah, one of my heroes. Todd and Bob Ezrin were probably my two big influences as far as production goes.
...
What about Bob Ezrin?
For me, it was Ezrin and Alice Cooper together. It's funny because I think my love of Todd Rundgren's "A Wizard, a True Star" kind of made prime for the "Downward Spiral" and Nine Inch Nails. And I think my love of Cooper and Ezrin made me ready to work with Marilyn Manson. You know what I mean? I loved the vibe of all that stuff.
Imagine that. About six months after Beavan split, Ezrin came in. One can only wonder if Beavan could've worked as a liaison between Ezrin and Axl.
Re: The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00)
From what I gather Ezrin hated everything Sean did and was the main culprit with the label for the infamous rerecording of Chinese Democracy.
Plus, I think that deal was really dubious as Ezrin likes getting writing credits, royalties and playing on the album, which is what he wanted to do on CD.
Really, I think Ezrin would have been perfect for UYI.
Re: The enigmatic Beavan album ('98-00)
When these various people mention the progress of the sessions, I wish they would elaborate further than the usual 45, 70, 200 songs. Different people have different ideas on what really constitutes a song. I'll never leave the small group of fans who think most of it was song ideas, instrumentals,etc., especially in that Oh My God phase of the band.
I need to spend a couple hours scrolling through that virtual encyclopedia Chinese Whispers. I'd like to see the different statements by different people about how much there was in specific time frames. I'm pretty sure it doesn't add up correctly.
