Axl Rose fell down while performing “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” at a recent Mexico City concert. And that might funny in and of itself — I mean, who doesn’t love scadenfreude? — but what makes it absolutely hysterical is that Rose was not running or even doing anything especially physical at the time of the fall. He simply walked up to the lip of the stage, attempted to rest his foot on a monitor (or something) as he started singing, and just completely missed the target, consequently flailing his arms around and making old man noises before hitting the ground. At which point Bumblefoot, ever the loyal employee, stopped playing, looked kinda confused for a second, and then finally offered to help Rose up. (Rose declined; he also refused help from a stage hand.)

And while I’m totally speculating here, I’m guessing Bumblefoot’s hesitation was spurred by the following thought process: “If I don’t help him up he’ll yell at me for being an insensitive dick, and if I do help him up, he’ll yell at me for making him look weak in front of his fans… plus I’ll violate his ‘no physical contact’ rule, and that could mean the end of the tour. I’d better just lead the audience in an applause whenever he gets back up.”

Kudos to Rose for waiting until he was off-stage, out of the sight of cameras, to call someone a fucking idiot for allowing this to happen.

-AR

[via Bring Back Glam!]

Despite not being the kind of grim n’ gritty tune Guns N’ Roses were most famous for, and despite having a ridiculous video in which Axl Rose swims with dolphins for no apparent reason and reminds everyone that he has more money than they do, “Estranged” is my favorite GN’R song. And I always thought it would be cool to see Axl’s Nu-GN’R do the track with Buckethead, ’cause I bet that dude could totally rip it.

So, of course, now that Buckethead has already been out of the band for seven years, Axl did the song at last night’s Rock in Rio performance.

Not a shock that it’s a little anticlimactic, ’cause for every one thing the band got right, there’s something else they got wrong: Axl can still sing the low parts pretty well, but not the high parts, and at one point his voice cracks like he was me at my bar mitzvah; Bumblefoot sounds great, but for some reason looks like Robin Finck now; Dj Ashba sounds so-so, but continues to do a ridiculous Slash impersonation, and there’s a much better guitar player who isn’t just aping someone else, Richard Fortus, standing right there on stage, but for some reason Axl won’t let him play the leads; Matt Sorum wasn’t invited, so the drums actually sound right for a change. So I guess ya take the good ya take the bad ya take them both and you still don’t have Slash in the band.

GN’R apparently really are going to a U.S. tour starting at the end of this month; we’ll see if they break out any other oldies but goodies.

-AR

[via Bumblefoot's Twitter]

Directly from the horse’s mouth comes the news that “guitarist n’ songwriter [emphasis added to point out mental retardation] Dj Ashba… officially replaces current NIN guitarist Robin Finck” in Guns N’ Roses. “Once Dj’s name was in the hat, the hat disappeared!!” benevolent dictator Axl Rose exclaims, doing his best impersonation of my Uncle Morty.

Showing that Rose at least has a sense of humor, the statement concludes: “Now, one step closer to the abyss, Ashba joins a band who’s all time roster is nearly as long as it’s [sic] founder Axl Rose’s rap sheet!” Oh, Axl, you scamp.

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HOLY FUCKING SHIT, have you guys read the liner notes for this fucking thing? “Produced by Axl Rose and Caram Costanzo. Mixed by Andy Wallace, Caram Costanzo and Axl Rose. Final Mixing: Caram Costanzo and Axl Rose.” “Additional production and preproduction by Roy Thomas Baker.” “Additional Production: Sean Beaven.” “Additional and/or initial Engineering.” Those are just the whole album credits. Each song gets its own “initial production” credit, too, and, in one instance, an “initial arrangement by” shout out. The phrase “reamped, edited and engineered” appears at least twice. Fourteen recording studios are listed, spread out over four cities on two continents. There’s no fewer than five guitarists (six if you count Rose himself), two keyboard players (three if you count Rose), two drummers, and two composer/orchestrators cited (The fact that only one bass player, Tommy Stinson consistently plays on the album seems like something of a marvel… oh, wait, that Chris Pitman dude everyone calls “Mother Goose” for some reason plays bass on “If the World.” Nevvvvvvermind.). Donatella Versace, Kid Rock, Lars Ulrich, and Mickey Rourke are all thanked, alongside guys with names like “Mookie” and “Worm.” THERE’S A CREDIT FOR “LOGIC.” I DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK THAT MEANS. IS THERE A COMPUTER PROGRAM CALLED “LOGIC” OR ARE PEOPLE ACTUALLY BEING CREDITED WITH SUPPLYING SOME LOGIC????????

I’m not making this shit up. I couldn’t make this shit up. Oh, to be a fly on the wall during the recording of Chinese Democracy! It must have made the production of Apocalypse Now seem like a long weekend on Fire Island.

But here’s the thing: as incredibly, insanely, undeniably fascinating as all that shit is, it really has nothing to with any critical analysis of the album.

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When I lost my virginity, I was so excited to actually have my penis in a vagina after so many years of thinking about it that whether my first time was actually an enjoyable experience or not was kind of beside the point. And with its release now less than a week away, that’s how I’m starting to feel about Chinese Democracy: I’m tired of thinking about it and just wanna experience it already, no matter what my final feelings on it turn out to be.

And even though the marketing campaign behind this mo’fo hasn’t been as massive as one might’ve thunk, Team Axl Rose certainly does know how to keep themselves in the headlines: they’ve now released a second single from the forthcoming opus, “Better,” which you can stream at Noo Yawk classic rawk station Q104.3. Incidentally, they are also running a search for New York’s hottest mom. Yowza.

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What the fucking fuck is going on in this clip from Fuse’s television version of the Talking Metal podcast? I don’t even mind the song so much – I have a soft spot for pretty ballads sung by big brutish metal dudes – but what’s up with the “We Are the World”-style gathering around the mic, and the slow fades of Zakk emoting in the studio, and the velveeta dripping from every pore of this clip?

By the way, the song is called “‘Till the End.” I have no idea where it comes from, but it’s not on any Black Label Society albums, to the best of my knowledge.

Also, that is current Guns N’ Roses guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal on guitar. Kinda funny, considering Zakk nearly joined GN’R about thirteen years back.

-AR

So a couple of weeks ago Michael Anthony spilled that beans that he and former Van Halen cohort Sammy Hagar “are working on a new project with a couple of good friends.” At the time, I joked that perhaps they were teaming up with Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum to form Velvet Hagarevolver, a force more powerful than Voltron or, at the very least, Toto.

In point of fact, the reality is much, much worse.

Blabbermouth has now confirmed the rumor we’ve all been hearing from the get-go, which is that the other members of the group are Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and Joe Satriani. And they’ve settled on the band moniker “Chickenfoot.”

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