All posts tagged: Axl Rose

liveinstoke

CD Review: Slash, Made in Stoke 24/7/11

Published by Brian Boone

A Guns N’ Roses live album is probably never going to happen. Axl and Slash hate each other, and even if they say that there’s gonna be a Guns N’ Roses concert, there’s little chance it will actually happen, and that’s even if the band was on speaking terms. Thus recording a GNR set was always going to be impossible. That said, of the two main creative figures of GNR, it’s been a nice surprise that the true workhorse, and the likable, approachable one has been Slash, who could have easily rested on his ‘80s metal guitar mastery, devolved into top-hatted self-parody, and played bitchin’ solos outside a desert church until he died at age 38 under mysterious circumstances in a Phoenix hotel room. Instead, he’s kept working, fronting numerous bands, contributing guest shots, writing an autobiography, and touring, up to and including live albums, like this one Made in Stoke 24/7/11. Recorded in Stoke-on-Tent, it’s Slash’s first wide-release live collection, but the only one recorded in his hometown (which explains the weird Euro numbering title). …

Listening Booth: Guns n’ Roses, “Chinese Democracy” — A Second Opinion

Published by Dw. Dunphy

It’s the curse of the debut album: the artist, unsure of who he/she is or what he/she ought to sound like strikes out in all directions — a power ballad here, a blues grinder there, a piano pop-tune way over yonder. The artist can be forgiven for their somewhat schizoid aim since the label has put all the weight of the company, as well as one’s own career path, down on their freshman shoulders. With that in mind, W. Axl Rose is the oldest freshman in the history of music, as his magnum opus Chinese Democracy has finally seen the light of day. The good news is that it isn’t the unmitigated failure we expected, yet it is far from the triumphant return from exodus his handlers would like you to believe. It is the equivalent of time travel wrapped in aluminum, or vinyl if you so desire, as songs that gestated through the 15-year span in between it and the previous covers album The Spaghetti Incident? (1993) have not been updated to any semblance …

Listening Booth: Guns n’ Roses, “Chinese Democracy”

Published by Dw. Dunphy

They said it would never be done. I said it would never be done. Geffen/Interscope/ Universal prayed that it might, but Axl Rose kept them at bay for more than a decade (much more!). This morning, however, a miracle happened. Following in the footsteps of Saints Yorke and Reznor, Rose released Chinese Democracy to an unsuspecting public. Rumored tracks have been leaking onto the torrent sites for well over five years, and several are found on the album (available only as a download for the time being); “Better,” “I.R.S.,” and “There Was a Time” are the most notable, as all have made their way into GNR concerts since 2002. These songs as well as “You Didn’t Hear From Me,” an epic ten-minute track feeling very much like “November Rain, Part 2,” are strangely well produced. I say strangely because, in what may be the boldest move of all, the sonic detail even in MP3 form is stunning. Rejecting the loud and hot model of the most recent hard-rock releases, Rose and his phalanx of producers …