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Re: Chinese Democracy in 1988
I think you give Axl too much credit on the partnership thing. Think your critique on his (project) management is pretty spot on, but could be a little tougher still - not only was he lacking the skills & wherewithal, he was quite probably lacking the ambition, energy & vision: all his behaviour since CD's bastardised release points to a man satisfied with his place at the table. The only sign betraying that was a joking line at the Chinese exchange about not having released enough material. He was ok having the royalities roll in off of AFD, he had his meal ticket.
Re: Chinese Democracy in 1988
Why should any of them ever do anything again?
These are street kids we are talking about ... little to no education that made it huge in a 4 year span...
If it were me I'd have retired a long fucking time ago lol ... want something from me? Too fucking bad Cya ...but he had a contract to fulfill
I think Axl underestimated chemistry and commraderie in those "lost years" as a group of urchins living under the street they had nothing to lose and tons of ambition
As millionaire Rockstars they didn't need to do anything else...he maybe assumed/hoped that the new group he brought in had the same drive and chemistry...they didnt and neither did he so i think shit just got put off endlessly
Re: Chinese Democracy in 1988
The way Axl tells the story is that he's always tried to protect the band. Money is of little concern to him, he pays people (through litigations or otherwise) to leave him alone. While the way he handled the partnership was an insult to S&D, he sincerely thought he was helping out the band.
A lot of the ire between them could've prolly been resolved by getting them in a room with Duff as the referee. Axl could've said how he feared the band would fall apart like his personal life, and that he feels the pressure of moving on from UYI without Izzy. Slash could've said he's still motivated to be in the band and wanted to build on their mutual foundation, just that touring was a way for him to keep busy and releasing his "rejected" Guns jams was simply means to get the songs out anyway. The entire feud was, in my eyes, muchly about them being in their separate worlds, lacking direct communication and second-guessing what went on in the other person's head.
As for CD... Axl was still in fine form on the 2007 tour in Japan. Next we saw him was 1,5 years later, again in the Far East. Talk about a meltdown. The scariest notion turned out to be that during the Ashba cycle (09-14), the first year was the best for Axl, both in terms of voice and fitness. Much was made of his boozing on tour - this was a far cry from the off-the-handle '02 Predator, that hit a gay gym by accident in one city. Apparently, he completed his workout, anyway.
CD deflated Axl. True to his nature, he missed every possible release date and blew countless opportunities. And like you said, it was still rushed; the master was completed in September/October '08, the booklet was a shambles. The assets were handled extremely poorly; again, poor project management. Team Brazil would've had the influence to fix those things a long while before the release - they didn't. Everybody was on Axl time. This meant pursuing whatever he wanted, instead of leading him through a number of choices (like cover art) he had to pin down before they would be turned over to Uni.
I bet Azoff came in, took one look at the project and thought to himself, 'Ehh...' It would've still been a mess. The BestBuy exclusive is another thing, a nigh-impossible way to clear the Uni debt. Azoff knew CD would never sell enough with consumers, so he sold the lock, stock and barrel to a corporation. Doing a double album under those circumstances would've meant a double amount of coasters for BestBuy. Axl's absence from the release might've been because he knew he was doing a deal with the Devil to get the album out. It's a hole he dug for himself, sure, but it still hurt.
After hurling things at Slash and Uni, Axl waited for the Van Halen supertour. Never happened. Things just kept going wrong with Azoff, to the point in which Guns were 'blacklisted' from Ticketmaster venues, thus crippling proper US tour. A year or two later, Guns toured US at those very venues, partially to pay off Azoff. It's easy to believe Axl was bummed, bummed, bummed. Look at Rock in Rio 2011, if post-CD was bad, post-2010 tour was worse.
The above is from one of the very last 2010 shows. Axl looks and sounds pretty damn good for someone pushing 49. He's definitely feeling the song, as well. He still had enough vitriol to carry him through one solid year of touring behind the album. To me, RIR '11 was the turning point - that's where we lost him for nearly five years.
Re: Chinese Democracy in 1988
A little bit of both, I guess.
It's all very strange.
You could argue he was using his mania to fuel himself out of the doldrums. You could also argue he was posturing out of some anti-Slash rage. Yet in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2007 he was still talking about a trilogy of albums and 30-50 songs were regularly mentioned. This isn't the thinking of someone without ideas. Lack of follow through or quality, maybe, but not short of ideas.
As a counterpoint, he had long been disabused of the Industrial GN'R angle yet in 2012-2013 they're still working over Oh My God and Silkworms? Strange.
If gossip is to be believed, the vault material is garbage, but who really knows.
What consistently left a lot to be desired were Axl's project management skills.
This one is tricky for me.
I get that tensions within the band were high and the band members were moving into new phases in life but the way Chinese Democracy was recorded is virtually no different from the way Appetite For Destruction was recorded. All members came and went as they pleased, only came into the studio when they felt like it, and demanded creative control yet producers deserve a lot of credit for shaping their material into a more solid whole.
I also know of many cases of highly successful people who work remotely yet are still very successful. The stories of runners trafficking discs across the city don't move me beyond the general excess that comes with positions of power. A lot of this stuff is a coach gambling on 4th down. If he gets it, he's a genius. If he fails, he's a fool. Same principle.
I'm quite interested in why the record didn't come out in 2002 and pretty much all of 2004.
As for CD... Axl was still in fine form on the 2007 tour in Japan. Next we saw him was 1,5 years later, again in the Far East. Talk about a meltdown.
I think something happened between February and June 2007 related to the record. The cancelling of their South Africa gig always seemed questionable but Axl showing up to the Mexico show several hours late, fatter, and extremely drunk is the bigger tell.
If second hand stories are to be believed, this angered one Robin Finck and the seams had already started to become undone.
Team Brazil would've had the influence to fix those things a long while before the release - they didn't. Everybody was on Axl time. This meant pursuing whatever he wanted, instead of leading him through a number of choices (like cover art) he had to pin down before they would be turned over to Uni.
The record company delaying (or rejecting) the album excuse always fell on deaf ears with me in general but especially because of this. If the album had been completed at any step along the way, then the booklet would've been a PDF or AI file on a hard drive somewhere.
Yea. I mean, what the hell?! These people are really fuckin weird/nuts. Tho what does that say about us..??
That Zodiac is my favorite movie, partly because it's a biography.
Re: Chinese Democracy in 1988
It's all very strange.
Do tell!
You could argue he was using his mania to fuel himself out of the doldrums. You could also argue he was posturing out of some anti-Slash rage.
Yup. I distinctly recall a story told in the '06 Trunk interview. It was 1991, the pre-release UYI tour leg. "Someone" was giving him a hard time about completing the albums. He fell down. The audience waited. He heard a WASP track. The record company person had "gotten Axl right where I want him! What's this... He's fired up! He's going to do the show....!" Axl went out and ranted about Tom Zutaut, the A&R man who signed them and had facilitated all their releases.
Axl was rising to the top of the world and he was seriously biting the hand that feeds. The record company peeps were a load of money-hungry tools to think they could pump out further releases out of him every three years. Five to six, maybe.
Yet in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2007 he was still talking about a trilogy of albums and 30-50 songs were regularly mentioned. This isn't the thinking of someone without ideas. Lack of follow through or quality, maybe, but not short of ideas.
Oh, he's had his share of ideas. Manic phases do that. One of them was the studio space. Jams with Slash had been held at The Complex. Axl wanted a fresh start with the Robin band - he moved the operation to Rumbo, the Appetite studio. By the time they hired Tommy, Axl realized the band needed to recreate Appetite, note-to-note, to road-test his studio gear and to align the lineup with that old magic.
Soon after, Sean Beavan came in. They started hashing out songs. In a year, they made two albums. One was much of CD, Robin-based, the other one more Dizzy/Pitman. That is to say, one was more traditional guitar-based album, while the other had a more EDM tone. By the time those two were done, Robin and Josh Freese quit due to a general sense of 'Now What?' within the band. They were out of the loop, as Axl was doing vocals.
As a counterpoint, he had long been disabused of the Industrial GN'R angle yet in 2012-2013 they're still working over Oh My God and Silkworms? Strange.
One thing about those two songs; they're already in the wild. What Axl seems to dislike is showcasing unreleased material. He needed 3-5 songs to sell the CD tours to promoters. The '02 Boston show ad used studio soundbytes of CD, Maddy and The Blues. The '06 leaks are harder to explain, other than by saying Fernando did it. Impossible to prove, but get this - Axl namedrops TWAT and Better (1st mention) in a RS article, while preluding his comeback trail.
What came with them was IRS, first heard in 2003 at Trunk radio. Baseball player Mike Piazza gave him the disc, they played one track (out of three), once. They dutifully gave back to Guns. Luckily, they had an inline; both Trunk and Piazza were backstage at the '02 MSG show, arguably their finest show with Bucket. Ever wondered if Axl heard himself in the radio?
What I'm suggesting is that there was no master plan behind the leaks with Axl involved. But there could've been one without him. Leaving him out of the plan would free him of any legal consequences with the record company, despite the fact that he would blow a lid down the road. Then again, that would be the norm. Axl and leakers agree on one thing; Guns songs with vocals are currency.
The opportune songs leaked at the eve of the '06 tour, to a warm response. Genuinely, people got a kick out of Better. The tour got hot, and the '02 catastrophe was being washed away by the new music. The leaks were a blessing; they rejuvenated interest in the band and the album. Had Axl finished bloody album, turned it in, taken a bit of a holiday and then embarked on a tour, CD release in the pipeline, he would've gotten away with it.
The CD saga could've been considered an unlikely success, had Axl met them halfway. Late as usual.
If gossip is to be believed, the vault material is garbage, but who really knows.
Silk Worms, anyone? I bet the new songs in RIR3 were an even split from the two albums, with Riad and SW being from the EDM-tinged pile.
the way Chinese Democracy was recorded is virtually no different from the way Appetite For Destruction was recorded. All members came and went as they pleased, only came into the studio when they felt like it,
"The first year ('98) I was there five nights a week, I'd drive from Long Beach up to the Valley. 9-10 at night and worked until 4, 5, 6 in the morning... I was playing records and doing sessions during the day, and then going there at night to do his thing." (Josh Freese, PodAMatic, 04/13)
"Every few months, say sources, somebody, if not everybody, would get fired - at least management could step in and resolve the issue.
'[Axl]'d be 'on' for a couple of weeks and then 'off' for a couple weeks', recalls Dave Dominguez, an engineer who started the sessions with Rose in the late nineties. 'He called in pretty much every day, though. He'd ask who was there, what they were doing.
He'd say to tell them that,
'I'm coming in, I'll be there in a while.'
I'd tell the band, 'Axl called and said he's coming in.'[Oftentimes,] he'd never show up... [but when he did, Axl] would show up at 2AM, [or] 2.30AM, and no one would be around, he'd get upset.
'Where are they?'
'I don't know, they all left.'Then he'd call the next day.
'Who's there?'
'Just Josh.'
'OK, have everybody leave. Have them break everything down. We're done.'...It took two days to break the room down because he fired everybody.'" (What's On Dubai, 12/10)
I also know of many cases of highly successful people who work remotely yet are still very successful. The stories of runners trafficking discs across the city don't move me beyond the general excess that comes with positions of power. A lot of this stuff is a coach gambling on 4th down. If he gets it, he's a genius. If he fails, he's a fool. Same principle.
Had the album come out in '06, Axl could've been redeemed and his method proven sound. Imagine that. Brain pretty much admitted that his respect for Axl as a working musician went up by chance. Brain had missed an early kick drum on a Roy Thomas Baker -produced track. RTB failed to notice. Brain did. They shipped out the disc. Axl complimented the take, but he thought he heard Brain miss a kick drum.
There was always a method to his madness, yes. But he was too far gone to share it with his band as such. They'd record stuff, and it go way down the assembly line. Later on, they'd hear mixes, likely much-wrangled. They'd be all, 'Oh, that's exotic'. Sure enough, it'd be all their stuff through the Axl filter. If kept in check, Axl can perform musical wizardry. Vastly listened and with a highly discernible pair of ears, Axl can by now prolly hear how songs were recorded.
What he gravely needed was a proper floor manager. Someone who could provide the band some overall insight, keep them motivated and move the recording along. They ended up having rented guitars in the corner, bills dutifully paid. Axl didn't care about the money, neither did Uni. Nor anyone else. Everybody was getting paid, so everybody went on with the programme as long as it suited them.
I'm quite interested in why the record didn't come out in 2002 and pretty much all of 2004.
You and me, both. Merck alluded the RTB/Tom Zutaut produced tracks were gradually re-done, starting after the '02 tour. They were still on Universal dime, so they could erase those two and their 'bad vibes', should that please the boss. But they were the same damn songs that make up CD.
I think something happened between February and June 2007 related to the record.
Cold feet. It was like '02 all over again. Axl's under the gun to deliver an album before a tour. He's feeling the heat.
The cancelling of their South Africa gig always seemed questionable but Axl showing up to the Mexico show several hours late, fatter, and extremely drunk is the bigger tell.
Axl's a sensitive fella, but that Mexico show seems alright.
If second hand stories are to be believed, this angered one Robin Finck and the seams had already started to become undone.
Robin left in '99 as his contract ended, his work done. He was angered by the non-release and the muddy outlook of the situation. Robin was the one who personally apologized the fans for the early cancellations on that tour. Again, Robin was already burned by the '06 non-release. And the ones before it. He posted a gothic image of angelic voice in a haunted house after the '02 cancellations. The message was clear; Axl refused to catch a break.
Yea. I mean, what the hell?! These people are really fuckin weird/nuts. Tho what does that say about us..??
At least we can carry on conversations by using highly unusual semantics. 
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Chinese Democracy in 1988
Here is a video from a few days prior... Listen how Slash and Adler introduce PC... Fuck they were ON FIRE HERE....
Re: Chinese Democracy in 1988
We're off in the woods again, as we are wont to do.
If Axl could've written lyrics and melodies first, he would've. It's no surprise that Prostitute was a much lauded track (melodies) or that the industrial tinged material was the most inspired (lyrics, actually using band members to their strengths).
It's also unsurprising that Axl eventually finding himself in the producer's chair tinkering with the material only allowed him to further filibuster the release. As you and Alice Cooper say, he seemed to be afraid of the material.
I suppose the long and the short of it was Axl did Axl and the record company was unable to hold the tiger by the tail. No one acted like adults, everyone made bad decisions, everyone acted unprofessionally, and everyone suffered for it.
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Chinese Democracy in 1988
God Damn, listen to this fucking tone... What a fucking show...
Re: Chinese Democracy in 1988
johndivney wrote:Yea. I mean, what the hell?! These people are really fuckin weird/nuts. Tho what does that say about us..??
At least we can carry on conversations by using highly unusual semantics.
That is brilliant. So funny & true.
Robin was the one who personally apologized the fans for the early cancellations on that tour. Again, Robin was already burned by the '06 non-release. And the ones before it. He posted a gothic image of angelic voice in a haunted house after the '02 cancellations. The message was clear; Axl refused to catch a break.
Anyone have a copy or link to this pic? Closest I can get is http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/news/news024.php Nov 17th link, but it's a dead end.
