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#911 Re: Guns N' Roses » "The Full Story Behind Our ‘Chinese Democracy’ Leak" (Antiquiet.com) » 644 weeks ago
Don't want to derail the thread, but for example, why are Slash, Matt, Duff and Dizzy across the mixer from Krys (bass) and Sid (drums)? I can understand using session musicians if they were all out on the road with Slashs Snakepit at the time, but Krys makes it sound like they were all in the studio together, and I can't find a specific date when Krys/Sid would have been in the studio.
Krys also mentions Zakk Wylde, who was jamming with Guns very briefly in early '95, so go figure. To confuse you some more, I found this Krys interview:
Rumor has it that you may (or may not) appear on Axl's 'Chinese Democracy' album. What was your involvement with that, how long ago did you record anything for that, and do you think it will ever actually see the light of day?
Ya know what? No. I did play on the demos that were being recorded for what I guess, may be that record. This was back in like ’96 to ’97. I would like to hear it come out, I don’t think it will. If it hasn’t by now, do you think it will?
Krys isn't exact with his dates, as he's not reaching out for his payslips to confirm them. I guess he was let go earlier than Sid, as Josh Freese remembers Billy Howerdel being the temporary bass player when he auditioned. Dizzy mentions Sid to have been in the studio with him and Paul during the Shaq incident. This was April, 97. Matt was fired just around this time, which was no surprise; Axl had been looking out to replace Matt before they officially parted ways. It wasn't as clean-cut as Matt says it was, even Igor Cavalera (ex-Sepultura) was approached when Matt was still officially in the band.
So Geffen pulled the plug on Snakepit (see Snakepit Recalled above) because Axl was ready to work on the next Guns N Roses album, but when Slash returned to the studio he finds Paul, Krys and Sid laying down ideas?
More like Geffen pulled the plug on Snakepit because Axl wanted to start haggling the band name for himself. But yeah, those guys appeared to be Axl's "solo project" at the time.
#912 Re: Guns N' Roses » "The Full Story Behind Our ‘Chinese Democracy’ Leak" (Antiquiet.com) » 644 weeks ago
Iovine was also the guy who made them go back and re-record the album when Axl was ready with it in, what, 2002? If I'm not mistaken, he suggested bringing in Roy Thomas Baker also, who by all accounts severly fucked the entire project up and down.
Iovine got involved in the first place in early '99, when Geffen was merged with Interscope and Guns switched labels. This meant Iovine sort of inherited the industrial album begun with Geffen approval. Like everyone else, he was ready to give it the benefit of a doubt. He was said to have been there with Axl, doing the final mix of OMG right before its release. After that track didn't go down so well, Axl was suddenly looking for guitar heroes, from Brian May to Bucket. We can only wonder how much of this was because of Iovine's insistence, but he certainly had his reservations with the industrial sound and the audience reception seemed to validate his concerns.
Bucket came in when Beavan was still there. The plan seemed to be just to put stronger leads on the record, with May and Bucket, to make it more of a traditional guitar-album, something which Guns had been known for. Iovine and Axl could've seen this as a compromise between their differences on the sound and as a way to circumvent the reception of OMG. Then, Iovine brought Bob Ezrin in to feel through the album. Had Ezrin been alright with it, there's a strong case to be made that the album would've been released in late 2000. Ezrin made the infamous "3 good songs" remark, possibly hoping to redeem himself in front of Iovine in case of an OMG reaction/sales, as well as knowing that working with Guns meant a big payday. By downplaying the material, Ezrin would win either way.
This is when Iovine got Roy Thomas Baker in, and Ezrin moved the band to the Village Studios in order for the label (read: Iovine) to have more control over the way things were run. Axl ran into a halt. Dragged out of Rumbo, the AFD studio, where he'd been happily cloistered with Beavan and the crew for a good few years, he made sure Ezrin would take a hike. But Iovine got the project where he wanted it, to be re-done closer to a classic rock sound, which he would've felt to be an easier sell. And that's the one thing Iovine would care about, due to pressure coming from above.
We had [Interscope Chairman] Jimmy Iovine intervening in a not-so-productive way, and we had other guys coming and going with nutty ideas. My summation of the whole thing is that Interscope, when they took over Geffen, really led Axl to believe that Jimmy Iovine would be involved, and would help get this record done and make it happen. But basically what he did was let it completely fall apart.
Jimmy [Iovine] and whoever would come down to the studio. Things would be good for [the first] month. Then... someone above Jimmy would start putting pressure regarding us on him, Jimmy would start pressuring others at his label [and they] would begin doing the same with us... [During the second month], the whole thing would get ugly and extensively interfere with getting anything productive done, and near the middle of the third month we'd arrange for Jimmy to come down again. They'd go away happy and the entire process would repeat itself over and over and over...
Then he had this great idea to bring in [producer] Roy Thomas Baker to make it sound better. All he did was re-record everything three or four different times, trying to make it sound like something it didn’t need to sound like, and spend $10 million in the process. My two cents on the whole thing is that I really think Jimmy Iovine fucked the whole thing up.
We feel that, unfortunately, we've never been really anything all that much more other than a throw it at the wall, see if it sticks, no real ground work, something to take advantage of, last quarter, cook the books, write-off, fuck this headache, hoping to get lucky scam.
Of course, this does paint a picture of a clueless labelhead feeling the heat to grab a hit album from a suffering genius. Then you add up the insane studio bill, the chicken coops, the nightmare of a band management (both Doug Goldstein and Team Brazil), and most importantly, the never-present, indecisive frontman/project lead.
The truth may well be that the nightmare was contagious; a shitstorm on all levels. 
#913 Re: Guns N' Roses » "The Full Story Behind Our ‘Chinese Democracy’ Leak" (Antiquiet.com) » 644 weeks ago
Skwerl: 'While I was still working at Universal in 2005, I met a guy that had been working with Axl, who told me that he had touched over 90 songs, 40 of which were “some of the best songs he’d ever heard.”'
It just makes me hate this band even more if all this is true .
The number of songs worked on has been the stuff of legend for years now. The most coherent numbers come from people who were actually there. Josh Freese and Sean Beavan both confirm that 40 or so songs existed in 2000, the year they both left the project. This jives with what Axl, Robin and others have said about there having been enough material to cover two albums or more since then.
When I left, there were two lists, the Master list ('Here's the 20 songs we're concentrating on') and the B list ('Here's the other 20 songs, we'll finish them one day and we'll see what happens'). (Podomatic, 04/13)
I think we worked on thirty-five songs or something. (Antiquiet, 08/13/08)
Even so, 90 songs in total is probably the most ambitious number I've ever seen on the subject. What's known is that the band did write new material with Bucket and Brain, which would pile upon the 40ish songs from the Beavan era. But the numbers are fleeting, again.
I went to the studio [in mid-February] and heard 41 songs [...] from the 60 or 70 [Axl]'s working on... You're gonna be blown away when you hear them. (Interscope executive, Kerrang, 03/07/02)
Over a decade later, we're still to be blown away. Even so, you'll notice the 41 songs to be consistent with the above quotes. But now, there are some pesky 20-30 songs, which exist below the B-list, and one can only assume they are in a very loose state, perhaps not even songs at all. Going back to 97, the raw material was already there.
"The story goes that Moby [...] went in to soak up some music compiled on nearly 300 DAT tapes that the band had filled with what the source described as 'ideas, loops and sketches,' and was duly impressed with what Rose and crew had come up with." (Addicted to Noise, 03/19/97)
"'I found it difficult to chart a linear development of the songs that they were working on,' recalls Moby. 'They would work on something, it would be a sketch for a while, and then they'd put it aside and go back to it a year, six months later. He became a little bit defensive when I asked him about the vocals. He just said that he was going to get to them eventually,' Moby continues." (Rolling Stone, 05/11/00)
So, this was before Robin, Tommy, Josh and co. Whatever they had on those 300 DATs may have been used as a foundation for the around 40 songs that ensued, and the remaining tens of songs still unaccounted for may partially be based on them as well. Curiously, those DATs were done during the partnership shakeups in 95/96.
"I was down in a rehearsal studio recording ideas with a couple other guys, a guy named Paul Huge who was in the band for a little while, and basically that's what I did five days a week. Five or six days a week, I was just down there recording ideas. A lot of great songs came out of that. It's all still there. Something will happen with that stuff eventually. That was a very cool creative period and it was great working with Paul." (Dizzy, Rock Journal, 07/11/04)
"You played in a rather bizarre version of Guns n Roses in the mid-90s - Sid Riggs was on drums I believe, who else was involved? Paul Tobias?
KB: Well now, keep in mind Sid and I were recording on demos. Paul was involved. If you talk to him, tell him to call me too. He’s a great guy. As for the recordings, across the mixer were such people as Slash, Zakk, Matt, Duff, Dizzy, and a host of others. We were all a part of putting tracks down on the demos. So, it was never a "version" of the band. It was fun though... The only time I really talked to [Axl] was up at that particular Halloween party at his house. He was never there when I was doing any playing. He told me he liked the bass parts and asked if I was getting paid on time, gotta love that. " (Krys Baratto, Sp1at, 04/15/05)
So, there you have the likely source for those 300 DATs. Ideas, loops and sketches, courtesy of Dizzy, Paul Tobias, Krys Baratto and Syd Riggs. That stuff may be the below the line material that keeps getting rumored about. No-one ever raves about how cool that stuff is for some odd reason - every insider seems to have their heart set on the 40 Beavan songs 
#914 Re: Guns N' Roses » "The Full Story Behind Our ‘Chinese Democracy’ Leak" (Antiquiet.com) » 644 weeks ago
The Feds came out pretty daft, considering they nearly incriminated Billy Howerdel for leaking discs burned in 2006. He'd been away from the project for around... six years.
We started with a list of people that had a copy of the record, according to the FBI’s information. It was very short. Three names: Andy Wallace, whose relationship with GNR was apparently strained for a time due to money owed to him; Merck Mercuriadis, Axl’s former manager, who had played the songs for Interscope in 2006; and, impossibly, Mister Saint Laurent, who had claimed to have gotten a copy from “some guy in Portugal.” One of these things is not at all like the others, and as I said, MSL’s claims were discredited and removed from this list... At some point in 2008, I’m not sure when, we found an email from Laurie Soriano to Jensen Penalosa, telling him that it had come to her attention that Jimmy Iovine “does in fact have a copy” of the tracks, and that his name should be added to the list of possible sources.
It's nice to get confirmation that them leaks were in fact Wallace's mixes, the ones Rolling Stone bragged about when there were x Tuesdays left in 2006.
The Iovine connection does tickle the funny-bone, when one takes into account how Guns were walking on eggshells when commenting on the leaks as they happened. Axl showed unusual restraint, just having the usual "leaks are devastating to the band", while the official line was something along the lines of "we don't really care about the AntiQuiet guys, our concern is the original source". If Iovine was the guy, those remarks were squarely aimed at him - and given Laurie Soriano is Axl's lawyer, Guns had their sights set on Jimmy as the culprit for a good while. Move on to 2009, Axl gives out interviews voicing his disenchantment with the label, while Tommy ups the ante by telling the world it was Iovine who sunk the album.
Looking back, both Axl and Tommy pretty much shovel the dirt at Iovine's feet by blaming him on everything aside leaking the album, and they do it because, well, Iovine may have leaked the album, but they can't say it outright.
#915 Re: Guns N' Roses » GNR Evo Updates » 645 weeks ago
Tis cool, all n'all. Might prefer a bit more padding on the left-hand side, just to nudge it towards the center of the screen - the right-hand side, in comparison, looks a bit desolate now, a problem exacerbated by higher screen resolutions. But it's getting there; better to start big and narrow it down to the most useable form than the other way around.
Love the simplicity. And I like the braids better than the Stache
Oh my, yes. 
#916 Re: Guns N' Roses » Axl best tenant ever article » 645 weeks ago
No doubt, but when you add that to being chronically disinterested of your finances, you're just begging for someone to take monetary advantage on you. Axl really comes out as the proverbial cash cow, for years having been the reclusive millionaire who needs to be pampered for his woes and insecurities, unable to function in an everyday life, and never thinking twice how much he made last month.
Once in a while, in a New Age community that embraces a certain number of charlatans, Axl got taken to the cleaners. During his marriage to Everly, Axl went for an exorcism. The exorcism apparently didn't involved the priests and crosses that viewers of prime-time television have come to expect. "Mainly it involved getting some kind of herbal wrap," Axl testified during the Everly case, some "work on my skin." The man who performed this procedure charged $72,000. Even Axl admitted, "I ended up getting ripped off for a lot of money in the long run."
Good chunks go into frivolous lawsuits and the maintaining of Team Brazil, as well...
#917 Re: Guns N' Roses » Axl best tenant ever article » 645 weeks ago
Reminds me of this.
Axl and his cronies are an unmitigated disaster when it comes to financing. CD burned through millions because expenses be damned. The profits of the UYI tour were muchly blown on the road on afterparties and whatnot, before the bookies told Ax to wake up, unless he'd like to return home broke. Typical rags to riches story, as he grew up on the skids in Indiana and never had enough money to be bothered with it. Then, when hitting paydirt, his spending habits remained unchanged, and it seems the years have done little to affect this. Axl's most certainly not motivated by money either way, he's merely cushioned to the idea that he always has enough to spend it on nice things he'd like to have without a second thought.
#918 Re: GN'R Downloads » Fan Remixes EP (5 Songs) » 645 weeks ago
The Maddy/Danube mashup is nice enough, the Unforgiven fall into it nicely. Not too big a fan of IRS/Star Chasing, as I felt the mellow guitars took too much away from the vocals. Just felt a bit meh. Scraped/Dark Paradise was decent, not a big Lana Del Rey fan. Better Mean is probably the best of the bunch for me, really dug the mix, which used the CD multitracks (with bass at audible levels, for a change) and the Swift vocals brought an entirely different layer to the song itself, turning it into a deconstruction of an abusive relationship with one (Axl) feigning martyrdom and the other (Swift) giving him a rude awakening. The Moby track was a passable Prostitute remix, nothing too shabby.
Amusingly, they're still better than the 'official' remixes so far. Other than that, I feel Ax would've certainly benefited of doing a duet with a contemporary female artist. The stint with Kylie Minogue worked wonders on Nick Cave, so it's a tried and true way to expand on your target audience and put a completely different spin to it all. As such, Better ft. Taylor Swift could've done a killing as a single.
#919 Re: Guns N' Roses » 11-21-2012 The Joint, Las Vegas (Being filmed in 3D) » 645 weeks ago
Britney Spears just began her two-year residency in Vegas and this write-up raises some curious similarities between her and Red, as well as illustrating the theme-park nature of it all.
At 32, with more than two decades of performing under her belt, Ms. Spears has already arrived at the laurel-resting portion of her career, landing in a greatest-hits production so winning that it barely needs her at all. Mostly, she’s a pinball during the 90-minute extravaganza “Britney: Piece of Me,” her new residency at the Axis Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino here that had its debut on Friday. Magical things are happening all around her — ornate sets, clever video displays, fiery dancing — but Ms. Spears is there mostly to activate memories, to be a souvenir for the eyes. Rarely did the voice booming out over the speakers appear to be coming directly from Ms. Spears’s mouth. Always a notch or three less committed than her backup dancers, she was at times downright listless.
Maybe Ax sings for himself, but coasting's been an issue there, too.
She may have the name recognition of a global superstar, but not the drawing power she had even a few years ago. Performing here, in this 4,600-seat hall, is a relatively low-risk proposition, and doesn’t demand that she extend her relevance... This is also a transitional moment for Las Vegas, a town becoming less reliant on older-audience-skewing musical revues and leaning more heavily on nightclubs. Ms. Spears’s show is a midpoint between the then and now, a legacy act with cross-generational appeal offering a show that might as well have been run by a D.J. (This newly renovated theater, too, is a hybrid, with two standing-room pits and a row of V.I.P. bottle-service tables abutting the stage’s lip.)
If Guns doesn't fit the bill just as well, I wouldn't know what does. Little wonder they're doing it again - the money's there with the least necessary effort.
#920 Re: Guns N' Roses » IF Axl and Stephanie get married and live happily ever after....... » 646 weeks ago
In the 90s, Guns would've done one album more. Axl would've gone solo after that on a permanent basis. IMO, the band would've broken up very soon no matter what.
If they'd get together today, Axl would quit the music biz tomorrow. Couldn't see him bothering himself with the motions anymore if he'd have a serious relationship going on the side.
Musically, the biggest difference would've been a diminished amount of sappy ballads.
