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Re: Do You Know Where You Are.....?
sorry if this has already been posted.... great read
http://addictivethoughts.com/2009/07/12 … e-you-are/
In 1999, Axl Rose spoke with MTV’s Kurt Loder over the phone. Their discussion centered on the inevitable: the former rock star’s withdrawal from the public eye and the details of his pending record, 2000 Intentions, which Rose claimed had just received a new working title: Chinese Democracy.
Over the span of the following decade, these two words would take on an immeasurable notoriety and inadvertently come to represent the decay of the traditional music industry. If Guns N’ Roses’ early career – with the band’s all-time-best-selling debut album — was representative of the old industry’s peaks, Chinese Democracy would signify the final nail in its coffin.
One can’t help but wonder what, exactly, the effect of Chinese Democracy might have been if it had been released in 1999; after all, this was the year nu metal arguably hit its commercial zenith, with the likes of KoRn and Limp Bizkit roaring across the airwaves. (I need not point out how insufferable this era was.) Most classic rock bands were dead; the era of cash-grab reunions had yet to begin, since the grunge movement hadn’t exactly reinstated rock ideals; and some of the last groups of the alt-rock movement in the ‘90s were on the cusp of extinction. Legitimate rock n’ roll was, quite suddenly, in high demand.
But Axl Rose did not meet his 1999 deadline; after the ill-fated and poorly received “Oh My God,” a song from the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle End of Days, Axl disappeared once again. No news. No follow-ups with Loder. No explanations for Geffen removing the tentative release date from its yearly schedule. It just vanished. So did he.
Fans wouldn’t hear from the enigmatic frontman for another year and a half, when Rose took to the stage with his new Guns N’ Roses lineup at the House of Blues for a surprise New Year’s concert. The date was January 1, 2001, and nu metal was already on its way out. Rock revivalism had begun – big groups were beginning to reform. Alt-rock leaders were finding new outlets. The Strokes and other NYC groups would soon usher classic rock sensibility back onto the airwaves, welcoming a whole host of Stones, VU and Stooges imitators from New York towards the wake left by nu-metal’s unwelcome occupancy. Axl’s new group would soon be seen not as a spiritual revival, but as a redundancy.
The band played again at the Rock in Rio 3 festival. The set was shoddy, plagued by bad sound in general, with a group that clearly hadn’t rehearsed much; and yet most fans agreed: the only person who was truly off that night was Axl himself, the supposed star of the show, who was caught gasping for breath less than a minute into the first song — while still attempting to run around stage like he had a decade prior, apparently unaware of his own limits. Yet the energy was transcendent, capturing the appeal of the performer’s early years. The new songs were, for the most part, quite good. The crowd went crazy.
Rose performing during a lowpoint in his career, at the 2002 VMAs
Rose performing during a lowpoint in his career, at the 2002 VMAs
However, the group’s domestic popularity was miscalculated; when they expanded dates for a Stateside tour in 2002 (after a disastrously received appearance at the VMAs, where Rose’s “updated” appearance — see right — may have even alienated his older fans), tickets hardly sold out, with many empty seats and one notorious no-show in Philadelphia resulting in a mass riot — the result of which would cut the tour short and ultimately cost the band immeasurably behind closed doors. The details of the filed lawsuits were never disclosed, but it’s reasonable to assume that the tour’s promoters were none too thrilled about their squandered investments. Axl never explained his reasoning for canceling the rest of the tour, though one might be inclined to believe he’d have rather quit than suffer through the humiliation of half-empty arenas.
And so Rose disappeared again. Guitarist Buckethead left the band in 2004, accompanied by a finger-pointing press release issued by Rose himself, who posited that the mysterious guitarist’s sudden departure had cost them their chance at playing Rock in Rio IV that year.
Recording sessions during these years were sporadic and costly for no apparent reason; Rose would listen to demo sessions over the phone, then drive over to the studio at late hours to play back tapes and leave notes for his musicians to follow during the next session (whenever that might be). If this seems like a peculiar way to run a band, then that’s probably because it is. The press release portrayed Buckethead as a manipulative quitter, when in fact it had been Axl’s own quitting two years prior that created the mess to begin with.
Where's Axl?
Where's Axl?
In 2006, Rose finally re-formed his group with a new lead guitarist (Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal), and – after some warmup shows in NYC – hit the international circuit, playing European gigs, including Download Festival — which nearly resulted in Rose walking when faced with a hostile crowd reaction. One person who was working backstage that day told me: “He was furious. He walked back [stage] after one of the songs…and was threatening to quit the tour. As soon as their set was over, they were ushered away separately. We had specific orders not to ‘bother’ him, or anyone involved in the group, [which] is common sense for all of us during something like that. Having it verbalized seemed insulting [and] patronizing.”
Rose was coaxed back on stage by the band’s then-manager, Merck Murcuriadis, who was fired by Rose in late 2006 after the long-promised album once again failed to materialize. (Rose had previously spoken to Rolling Stone and MTV in early-and-mid-2006 respectively, claiming fans would have the entire album by year’s end.) Rose – following his usual pattern – blamed someone else for his shortcomings, portraying Merck as a lying, thieving business man whose only goal was to extract money from promoters. One can’t help but savour the hypocrisy of such an accusation, or its stating of the obvious: Find me a manager who isn’t interested in money and I’ll find you a pig with wings.
It is a testament to the strength and earnestness of the singer’s fans that they waited for the record’s release all the way up until the end of that year, well after any reasonable time range for an album to be properly promoted and released – especially an album of such magnitude. Rose finally posted the notice of delay to his website, mere weeks before January 1st, 2007. He stated that Guns N’ Roses would abandon the last few stops of their tour to book studio time, presumably get a new manager and add “finishing touches” to their album.
Those must have been some really special finishing touches, because the album still didn’t come out for another year and a half. Fans were forced to wait until October for a single shred of information regarding release plans, when they were finally solidified. Best Buy, it seemed, had struck an exclusive deal: they would carry Chinese Democracy and back it with “one of the biggest” promotional campaigns in history. Fans were ecstatic: it was finally happening. And yet not even that worked properly — unless you count a few ambiguous television commercials screened during hours when the correct demographic wouldn’t even be watching, there was literally zero press. The Internet can work wonders with word-of-mouth, but the anticipation was low. Had Axl called wolf too many times over the past few years? Or, somewhat more depressingly…was it simply because no one really cared?
The record opened with 261,000 sales, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Charts. It was a far fall from greatness, even in the downloading era; by comparison, Eminem’s latest album, Relapse, debuted with close to 700,000 copies during the same range of time, and had more tracked illegal downloads (thus throwing out the most standard argument). Both were considered long-awaited comebacks, but one of them was also well-promoted. The other was not.
The album quickly disappeared from the charts altogether, dipping even below the group’s 2004 Greatest Hits compilation disc. It was hardly the revolutionary kick-in-the-face that fans and industry insiders were hoping for when they had, in the past, claimed it would “bring back” rock n’ roll; not only that, but it was greeted with critical indifference. Many professional outlets recommended the record, but few raved about it. Even its plays on the social networking site last.fm rapidly dropped below the group’s previous hits just a week after its sell-date, revealing no trend in repeat listens amongst most users.
But where was Axl Rose? No one knew. He had, reportedly, retreated into his own isolated existence yet again – refusing to accept calls from his label as close as two weeks prior to the release date. Not a single interview; no music video; no talk show appearances. Nothing. If he thought the band (or, perhaps, brand) name alone could sell, he thought wrong.
Or maybe that was the point. Perhaps, in his own way, Rose did not want to accept potential failure. What if he had promoted the record? What if he had gone on talk shows? And what if it had still flopped? Would that have been too heavy a blow to his ego (much in the same way that he had opted to quit the ‘02 tour over the option of accepting half-filled shows)? Would he rather be able to have an excuse for its failure than try as hard as possible and be faced with the unfortunate realization that he just wasn’t the same mega-star capable of pushing mass units as he was in 1990?
103107 004 999A7322 199x300 Axl Rose: Do You Know Where You Are?There’s another possibility, of course: maybe he really just…didn’t care. Maybe he viewed it as a business venture; after all, Best Buy had paid him a healthy advance on the album distribution rights, the sum total of which reimbursed his personal wasted recording costs over the past few years (Geffen had stopped picking up the studio tab in 2004, when they came close to suing Rose for breaching his contract – at this point they had already invested $13 million into the project). This theory was given credence by the album’s apparent rush-job – you’d expect after 14 years, for example, that the CD pamphlet would include correct lyrics and spell the bandmembers’ names correctly…not only that, but the sound of the record was wholly inconsistent, veering between songs with vocals way too high in the mix to tracks that sounded to have been recorded during an entirely different time period, with noticeably different vocals and mixing.
This leaves a last option: could the whole mess be contributed to Best Buy? Had the retail outlet dropped the ball on one of the biggest albums ever? Or was there simply a lack of communication between both parties?
Axl subsequently appeared on a popular fan forum named MyGNR, taking time to explain his side of the story: elaborating upon the breakup or the original lineup and offering his thoughts on whether they ever had a chance of reuniting. In short? No way. He also complained that there were unrealistic expectations surrounding the Chinese Democracy record, and echoed past sentiments of his own (in more detailed words, this time) about the Internet being a “big garbage can” – a daring opinion on an Internet forum whose user base accounted, reasonably, for at least a healthy statistic of the first-week sales.
Not all was dreary, though. Rose had some kinder words for some, and detailed the backgrounds for some of the album’s tracks — revealing, for instance, that he had approached Mickey Rourke to play a character in a music video for industrial rocker “Shackler’s Revenge,” and shedding light upon the recording of a song that had originally featured Brian May on guitar. He also commented upon the apparent departure of guitarist Robin Finck, basically stating that the band still considered him part of the family despite his decision to tour with Nine Inch Nails later that year.
A few months later, Axl did his first interview for Billboard Magazine, albeit by e-mail. (The correspondence was so difficult to decipher that the article’s editor even pointed out how much they had to revise it before publishing.) Rose commented on the album’s frequent delays: “There aren’t too many issues of the hundreds [we ran into] that happened as quickly as anyone would have preferred, from building my studio; finding the right players; never did find a producer; still don’t have real record company involvement or support; to getting it out and mixed and mastered.”
At first glance, the comments seem reasonable. Upon careful examination, however, they might seem questionable. No support from the label? Beyond stating the obvious lapse of logic (a label dishing out $13 million – more than has ever been paid to another other group — is considered a lack of support?), Geffen begs to differ; one source told me they were highly supportive until the breaking point in 2004, after Rose had begun to ignore them altogether and after the album was already way over budget – both aspects forcing them to cut their losses after he turned down a lucrative ultimatum to have the record out by year’s end. “He had more support than [most of] their artists at the time. They assigned specific people to coax the album from him, and every time he’d either get rid of them or demand they back off by [circumventing] them and complaining to their [superiors]. When they pushed for [reasons] for the costs and delays, he’d become uncooperative and refuse to [disclose the information]. I think that album got more dedicated attention than anything else floating around back then, so for him to complain as if nobody was helping…it’s just stupid. And a lie. [We] were surprised to read those comments, to say the least.”
Besides this glaring omission from Axl’s side of the story, there’s countless other objections to be made. Most of the players that were in the group in 1999 were still there ten years later: namely Tommy Stinson, Dizzy Reed, Brian “Brain” Mantia, and Robin Finck. Two other additions came in 2002 (Richard Fortus and Chris Pitman), both of whom stayed as well. Suddenly, the excuse of “finding the right players” for the record seems an exaggeration, to say the least – did it really take ten years just to replace a lead guitarist twice?
And for all of Rose’s proclamations that the new band could stand on its own, he would frequently blast the old lineup in an attempt to prove his point, as he did in the Billboard interview: “And to [perform and record with the new group] is something that’s a miracle at minimum and something that wouldn’t have happened, no matter how anyone tries to convince others, with old Guns, regardless of anyone’s intentions. It was just as ugly in old Guns, regardless of our success.”
Who asked about them, though?
Axl Slash Smile 300x289 Axl Rose: Do You Know Where You Are?
Happier times.
Is it too unfair to assume that someone desperately attempting to disassociate himself from his “old” band would opt to discuss the new one instead? Yet Rose seemed discontent with praising his own work or even his new bandmembers (almost of none of whom he actually introduced or even referred to in his long-winded rants). The most common defense, in this regard, is that other ex-bandmembers — namely Slash — had tarnished Rose’s name in the press for years, and deserved a taste of their own medicine. And the most obvious response to this is: Rose stood to make a greater point by avoiding such petty antics because he was still carrying the GN’R name, and thus – by resorting to he-said/she-said accusations – it was only to be expected that he would attract greater criticism from both fans and media. The fact that Rose launched into an even deeper tirade against Slash weeks later (in an interview with his own manager, Del James), labeling him a “cancer” best avoided, only further undermined whatever point he was trying to make, and lost him even more support from fans who had previously been straddling the fence.
He also commented upon his reluctance to promote his work through traditional venues: “The opinions expressed or ‘jumped’ on publicly regarding promotion seem to be [about] my or our involvement with mainstream media — talk shows, rock magazines and dot-coms — which have generally held negative public stances toward myself or the band for years, [and they] unfortunately have not been resolved.”
The comments reeked of isolation and severe egoism – did Rose truly believe the media held a grudge against him? That people were still, after all these years, Out Ta Get Him? Could these sort of thoughts be enabled by the yes-men he had surrounded himself with over the years, transforming himself into a 2000s equivalent of ‘60s and ‘70s Brian Wilson (complete with his own Dr. Landy in the form of an over-protective surrogate mother from Brazil)?
jesusaxl 200x300 Axl Rose: Do You Know Where You Are?But then, Axl Rose has always been one for themes of self-sacrifice and martyrdom. He would frequently end shows fit into a Jesus pose, hands reaching for the skies. He wore Kill Your Idol t-shirts in the ‘90s. He identified with fallen musicians such as John Lennon (who has a tribute of sorts on the new record in the form of “Catcher in the Rye,” written, apparently, from the perspective of the icon’s killer).
A large part of Rose’s appeal, in fact, was always his exposure. He acted like a contemporary vapid rock star, but he wasn’t one in the truest sense; he certainly wasn’t as happy-go-lucky as the other bandmembers, nor the LA fun-seekers such as Motley Crue. Instead of Ratt and Poison, Axl turned to Elton John and Queen for his power ballads, resulting in the surprisingly successful singles such as “November Rain,” which propelled their way up the charts despite relatively long run times.
15761 274x300 Axl Rose: Do You Know Where You Are?So why does his martyr complex and exposed soul seem less agreeable today than in his prime? Age, perhaps – when you’re writing songs dealing with paranoia while on drugs at 22, the temper tantrums and narcissism almost seem necessary; a part of the whole package. But when you’re pushing 50, it is, to be fair, just not the same.
There’s a certain line every artist must cross at one point or another where you lose your connection with the youth market and must find a new channel and new range of appeal; Chinese Democracy, by comparison, is probably the most self-interested album ever written – there isn’t a single song that doesn’t deal with themes of martyrdom and bein’ done wrong. “Madagascar” speaks of how the masses long to “tear down” the frontman’s soul. He caps it off with a fragmented Martin Luther King, Jr. speech (and a puzzling inclusion of Se7en film dialogue, amongst others). Little effort was invested in songs with catchy melodies; sprawling and epic, certainly, but not concise or suitable for radio play. The band struggled to even release a second single from the album, and when they did, it quickly floundered due to lack of promotion and no radio play.
The great tragedy of Chinese Democracy, and indeed the artist who created it, is just how well it sabotages itself. If Rose had released it in 1999, before the age of Internet piracy and before the New York scene ostensibly brought back “real” rock n’ roll, his work could have lived up to its status. He could, indeed, have been remembered as not only the singular force in the resurrection of classic rock music, but even as the last true superstar prior to the downfall of the music industry.
Of course, that’s just wishful thinking. Expectations of quality aside, Chinese Democracy just doesn’t represent enough – it should have been an Event, but instead it’s just another album; a solid listen with intriguing songs whose longevity will mostly appeal to the pre-converted. And its mastermind, let’s face it, has proven his long-time doubters right: not only did he reveal that he never had a brilliant scheme brewing after all, but it seems he is no visionary – or at least not as visionary as we might have once been inclined to believe.
But that’s okay, because, hey — it’s only rock n’ roll, right? And that, of course, is the conundrum: Chinese Democracy has higher aspirations. It doesn’t want to just be rock. It dreams of bombast and modesty all at once and effectively undermines itself. So, too, does its creator. I entirely trust him when he claims that he never set out to make The Best Album Ever, but then again, anyone with half a brain would have assumed such from the very start. (Did anyone ever truly believe it would surpass The Beatles’ catalog? Or even the Rolling Stones’?)
axlrosebw 266x300 Axl Rose: Do You Know Where You Are?The saddest part of the story isn’t that he didn’t create The Best Album Ever, but that there seems to have been no point. The public’s perception has long been that Rose’s erratic behavior drove away the rest of his original bandmates. Whether this is an accurate assessment of the band’s demise is irrelevant – unfortunately for Rose, the consensus has always leaned favourably towards the others’ side of the story, and one can’t help but feel that his eventual clarification on numerous issues came about a decade too late. You can’t change public consensus overnight, or with just one person. It takes something bigger. Like an album.
That’s the most truly painful chapter of Chinese Democracy’s saga: all these years, fans waited in the hopes that there would be a message to be told. We wanted justification for the band’s divorce. We also wanted to reaffirm our faith in Axl Rose, whose underdog status had often been a compensatory selling point for his less-than-stellar public antics and perception. For years, we expected its release would summon Rose back to the heights of rock reverence. He would prove himself, finally; he would deride his detractors and produce something capable of illustrating that he was, indeed, as he so often claims, the true singular force behind the original band. He would, at long last, earn his continued usage of the Guns N’ Roses name in the eyes of the public, and effectively cripple the idle protests of Slash, Duff and Izzy. He would exorcise his demons, and lay it all out for us over the course of his magnum opus.
But that didn’t happen. Rose’s lack of publicity wasn’t disappointing for any other reason than it reflected a lack of interest that one might not have foreseen from an artist who had struggled for so many years, by his own admission, trying to come out from under the looming shadow of the past.Maybe the album’s 14-year gestation period ultimately boiled down to its creator’s troubled personal life; for all we know, ten of those years were spent in and out of therapy, trying to reach a resolution with history. Or perhaps not. Perhaps this is the swan song — but if that’s the case, you must ask yourself why its mastermind, who invested so much of his own blood, sweat and tears, would be so happily distanced from seeing it through its full cycle. People did not even act this way in the traditional industry, and they certainly don’t today. The fact that the album still managed to move 260,000 units in its first week says quite a bit about the band’s lasting impact.
The last time Axl Rose spoke with fans, he promised a music video would be released shortly for the album’s second single. It has been over half a year since that day, and the video has yet to surface. It now serves as the simplest and most accessible example of the tarnished legacy of one of the last great rock n’ roll bands of all time. 22 years ago, he asked us if we knew where we were. Now, perhaps, it is time for us to ask him the same question.
- FlashFlood
- Rep: 55
Re: Do You Know Where You Are.....?
it is a good read. some errors (pitman most notably).
I think there is too much of a dismissal of the 2006-2007 time period. During this time-frame, Axl reasserted himself as an A-List celebrity. He was at all the swank parties with all the big names. His voice and stage presence were better than ever. His image was totally revamped. The idea that the entire Chinese Democracy saga was doomed from the start is not entirely true. The excitement during the 2006 time period was unmatched by any other year. Unfortunately, the author chose not to mention these things.
I'm not trying to come off as a total axlite here but sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due, and I think this is a case where it was ignored for the sake of the author's article.
Re: Do You Know Where You Are.....?
The excitement during the 2006 time period was unmatched by any other year. Unfortunately, the author chose not to mention these things.
I'll totally give you Axl looked and sounded much better than he did for the 2002 shows. But as best as I can tell they were playing to half empty arenas (in America anyway).
Whether they were good or not, there wasn't a whole lot of "excitement" except from a small base of people.
Re: Do You Know Where You Are.....?
FlashFlood wrote:The excitement during the 2006 time period was unmatched by any other year. Unfortunately, the author chose not to mention these things.
I'll totally give you Axl looked and sounded much better than he did for the 2002 shows. But as best as I can tell they were playing to half empty arenas (in America anyway).
Whether they were good or not, there wasn't a whole lot of "excitement" except from a small base of people.
I don't think the attendance was much different for better or worse than it was in 2002.
- FlashFlood
- Rep: 55
Re: Do You Know Where You Are.....?
Well there were the 4 warmup shows which received a lot of attention, followed by a very successful European trek, then North America where they headlined Inland Invasion, and despite doing some low numbers in small market areas, held their own in the states.
Axl was showing up in tabloids, rollingstone.com every other day, and pallin around with all sorts of people. There was a legitimate feeling that maybe Axl was gonna get it to work afterall, but then...well thats where this guy's article comes in.
- NY Giants82
- Rep: 26
Re: Do You Know Where You Are.....?
I think the warmup shows had a lot of attention, and there was excitement for those shows. The European shows were the same. But it seems some of the excitement and attention died down a bit when they returned to the States in the fall. Maybe it was the lack of an album, and no end in site?
Re: Do You Know Where You Are.....?
Maybe it was the lack of an album, and no end in site?
That was exactly why. 2006 was the time for it to drop, they had a band that's look was more "normal" so they were more marketable and the public was kind of on Axl's side.
