12 looped seconds of “Checkmate,” one of 70-something songs from the Chinese Democracy sessions that will probably never see the light of day.

A couple of weeks ago Eyal wrote a great installment of “Jumping Darkness Parade” in which he asserted that “the only thing you can trust is for a person to be who they are, not who they tell you they are.” Past behavior is always the best indicator of future behavior.

And the past behavior of Axl Rose tells us that if we ever get a follow-up to Chinese Democracy, it won’t be for a very, very long time. It was four years in-between the release of Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion, nearly two of which were spent just recording the latter albums, and all signs point to Axl being the source of the long wait; then it was SEVENTEEN more years before the release of Democracy. Even if you consider that Axl and all the various incarnations of GN’R didn’t start working on that album until roughly 1995, and the that recording was allegedly (finally) completed circa 2006, that’s STILL eleven years. Based on this information, I have worked out a mathematical formula for how long it will take Axl to record each subsequent Guns N’ Roses album, which is as follows:

TIME IT TOOK TO RECORD THE LAST ALBUM + NINE ADDITIONAL YEARS = TIME IT WILL TAKE TO RECORD THE NEXT ALBUM

According to this precise formula, if Axl Rose’s Rock N’ Roll Circus enters the studio to make a follow-up to Chinese Democracy in 2011, then the album will be released in 2031. By that time, Axl will be almost 70 years old, Dj Ashba will be almost 60 years old, and Slash will theoretically be 66 but, let’s face it, will more likely be dead (or, at least, still searching for a suitable replacement to take Scott Weiland’s spot in Velvet Revolver). There probably won’t be a MetalSucks in 2031, there almost certainly won’t be a record industry, and there definitely won’t be a Best Buy for Axl to con into carrying a record he has no intention of properly promoting. And I can’t for the life of me figure out who would fund such an endeavor anyway.

And yet Dj Ashba has the audacity to “promise” fans that the next album “won’t take as long” to record and release:

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I guess it was inevitable that “Beautiful Dangerous,” Slash’s collaboration with Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas, would be released as a single and get a video; Fergie appeals to a large audience that isn’t necessarily Slash’s core fan base, so theoretically it could be a chance to earn some new fans, like when Santana released that song with the guy from Matchbox 20.

The video is actually pretty funny. In it, Fergie plays a woman so obsessed with Slash that she masturbates while thinking about him, then seeks him out at a strip club where he mysteriously is hanging out with no entourage or security of any kind, then drugs and kidnaps him (and no one seems to notice her dragging out one of the world’s most recognizable rock stars I guess), then takes him back to her motel, grinds up against him, and kills him.

Oh, yeah. Spoiler alert.

ANYWAY, there’s nudity and Fergie doing all kinds of suggestive things in this video, so I guess it’s “dangerous” to watch at work. On the other hand, there’s also a shot of Slash enjoying some Monster energy drink, with the carefully label turned towards the camera, so it’s not really that dangerous at all. ‘Cause remember kids: product placement ain’t rock. Sorry.

Also, Fergie’s in the video, so it’s not “beautiful,” either. Just sayin’.

-AR

video courtesy MissPinksMusic

So Duff McKagan joined Axl Rose and his new Guns N’ Roses on-stage at the 02 Arena in London last night, playing bass for “You Could Be Mine” (video above) and rhythm guitars for “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and “Nice Boys.”  (You can also see photos here.) Inevitably, this is going to make people ask the question: “Is the original line-up (or something closely resembling the original line-up) of Guns N’ Roses getting back together?” As MetalSucks’ resident GN’R geek, I hereby take it upon myself to provide reckless analysis regarding this blessed event. After the jump, get both sides of the argument, as provided by my drug-addled fanboy brain.

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

For no particular reason whatsoever other than we thought it would be fun, this week we asked our writers:

IF YOU COULD HAVE BEEN PRESENT FOR THE CREATION OF ANY SINGLE METAL ALBUM, WHICH ONE WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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I know what you’re thinking: “Two Limp Bizkit-related stories in as many days! What did we ever do to be so lucky?” What can I say? This entire week has felt like one long hangover.

So. Fred Durst’s feature film directorial debut, a would-be Sundance hit called The Education of Charlie Banks, was a barely-watchable piece of shit that failed to make so much as a dent in public awareness; his second film, the Ice Cube family sports drama The Longshots, tanked at the box office. But Durst gives great head (for dudes… he can’t find the clit so he’s pretty useless for women) and people are stupid, so he’s swindled someone into letting him make another movie. From Noisecreep:

“Durst is also directing his third feature film. The third film is dubbed ‘Pawn Shop Chronicles,’ and it follows a protagonist through a world of skinheads and meth heads thanks to a missing wedding ring. The film is slated to go into production early next year.”

Click to read more…

Speaking of Slash: Vince and I caught his solo tour last month, and, for me at least, the big surprise of the evening — besides Vince’s brilliant revelation that Slash should start transitioning from rock and metal into blues as he gets older — is that Myles Kennedy is actually pretty awesome. He’s got a terrific set of pipes and a really incredible amount of range, and he’s a great front man. I think I read somewhere that he turned down the chance to be the new singer for Velvet Revolver, which is a bummer, ’cause he’d clearly do a great job (to say nothing of the fact that he’d be able to help them play old GN’R tunes that require a higher vocal register than that of Mr. Scott Weiland, which is all I really care about at this point anyway).

So for now, we have to settle for Kennedy being the frontman for Creed without Wife Beater instead of Guns without Rose. And Alter Bridge’s latest, the cleverly titled AB III, is now streaming here.

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Slash is friends with legendary producer Robert Evans (Chinatown, Marathon Man, uh, Jade), and plays the theme from The Godfather during his extended live guitar solos. Also, he’s obviously pretty famous. And by Hollywood standards, that makes him qualified to help run a production company. And by “help run,” I mean “take large paychecks to put his name on some shit so it will get more publicity while other people do all the work.”

Look, it’s working already! From Deadline:

“Unless you answer to Rob Zombie, what musician has a name better suited to horror film making than Slash? The iconic guitarist of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver has teamed with Scout Productions to start Slasher Films. They will produce edgy contemporary horror fare with a nod to the thrillers of the ’70s and ’80s. They’ve set up their first: Nothing to Fear, a horror/thriller that follows a young family as it tries to reinvent itself by moving to a small town in rural Kansas. The family is tormented by an ancient demon with an insatiable blood lust.”

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In 1997 there was this girl that I was really into. I don’t even remember what her name was now, but I remember being very excited when I finally found myself at her place with just the two of us for company.

“Hey, wanna hear something awesome?” she asked me. The correct answer in that situation is obviously “Yes,” and so she walked over to her stereo and hit “play.” And this is what came out of the speakers:

The song ended and I figured out some excuse to leave and I left. Later I wondered if the girl really liked the song (she certainly seemed to) or if she played it knowing it was awful because she couldn’t think of a polite way to reject me, but it’s a moot point: I will never know how my relationship with that girl might have played out, all because she had to go and be the first person ever to introduce me to Limp Bizkit, and, more specifically, Limp Bizkit’s terrible covers.

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The reason all the hair-metal autobiographies have been disappointing is because the best hair metal band, Motley Crue, did it first, and did a really killer job (treating it like an oral history told from lots of different  perspectives = master stroke), and so there was really no place to go but down. Bret Michaels’ autobiography never actually materialized, Slash’s was good but not great, Steven Adler’s sucked, I only know one person who read Bobby Blotzer’s,  and now all the Motley Crue guys are dipping back into that pool for a second or even third time, only without each other because after thirty fucking years they still haven’t figured out that the unit is stronger than each individual. At this point I think it would take everyone who ever worked on Chinese Democracy, including Axl Rose, all banding together to make a The Dirt-style Roshomon piece if anything is even gonna BEGIN to compete with The Crue’s initial tome.

Now glam’s ugly twin, thrash, has started to catch on that there’s an interest in these books. And they don’t seem to be following the same pattern as cock rock. Sure, Dave Mustaine went first, but no one seems to really believe a word of his book, and it’s certainly not a definitive snap-shot of the time and place the way The Dirt is for the Strip in the 80′s. And I obviously have a lot of faith in Phil Anselmo’s upcoming collaboration with MetalSucks’ own Corey Mitchell, but Pantera weren’t purely thrash, and weren’t around for the Big Four’s heyday.

So. Now Noise Creep says that Kirk Hammett is doing his autobiography. (The news actually originated in an interview with Ultimate-Guitar, but I can’t find it. If anybody does, drop me a line.) There’s no word on which lucky writer will score that coveted “with” credit, but here’s a choice quote from Kirk:

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Sam Strange is a director of such momentous talent that after he once screened his latest film for Spielberg, Spielberg got a job at Jack in the Box, and had to be talked into returning to the business to direct his masterpiece, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. A little-known fact is that Strange also directed Guns N’ Roses’ infamous video trilogy, “Don’t Cry,” “November Rain,” and “Estranged.”

Now Strange has opened up about his experience to C.H.U.D. in a special guest blog. Apparently, the concept for the video came about via inception, the now-famous method of dream invasion portrayed in Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Strange writes of his encounter with rock’s most dangerous front man:

The strangest story I have involves this guy Axl Rose (Real Name: Hacksel Rosenbaum). When Axl came to us he was leader of an struggling local Rock n Roll band called Guns n Roses. Axl felt destined to rock stardom, but some unhappiness deep in his subconscious kept this fate out of reach.

“So Mr. Rose, please tell us what IDEA you want us to Incept in your brain and how many tickets you think it will sell.”

“I dunno. I just wanna be a rock guy.”

“Do you know how hard it is to Incept someone? An IDEA like that is far too broad. You’ll have to think of something more specific.”

“That’s the best I can do. Here’s two billion dollars.” (Axl was super rich because his dad had been an extra in Pump Up the Volume.)

Strange also offers an analysis of each individual video, for the benefit of those of us who always found the storyline a tad confusing. Here’s an excerpt of his explanation of the “November Rain” clip (above):

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What year is this? Last night Axl and I went to see Slash, tonight we’re going to see Billy Idol (with mutual man-crush Steve “Jewy Jewowitz” Stevens on guitar!!) and now I’m posting about a new song by Joe Satriani. Sergeant D overslept today or else I’m sure he’d be kicking our asses and making us listen to way cooler music from the ’80s and ’90s like, I don’t know, Leeway or Black Army Jacket, but your Uncles Axl and Vince weren’t nearly so cool back in the day.

So for now it’s Satch, and ya know what? Cheesy Chickenfoot project included, dude can still play his balls off although Satch ought-ten is way more restrained than Satch nineteen-ninety. It’s like Satch realized a long time ago that he can’t keep up with today’s kids by out-shredding the shredders so he took a conscious step back from the speed in favor of a calmer, bluesier, dare I say loungier version of himself. Which was a good decision if you ask me, because the key to longevity in music is finding a way to slide gracefully from your youth into whatever follows. If only Slash would be so prudent and make a straight blues album (or five) instead of still trying to rock, man! we know it’d absolutely smoke faces, instead of Slash’s recent solo album which is perfectly ok but… tries just a little to hard to rock, man!

Hear neo-Satch on his brand new track “Light Years Away.” It’s available for free and comes from his forthcoming jam Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards, out October 5th on Epic Records.

-VN

I think Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” was actually the first “life on the road” music video, but regardless of who created the genre, it existed before Guns N’ Roses’ Nigel Dick-directed clip for “Paradise City,” and has continued to exist long since. (A recent example would be DevilDriver’s video for “Fate Stepped In.”) And they seem to be a rite of passage in some sense — even Metallica have made one.

But there was a candid quality to “Paradise City” that, even if it was ultimately manufactured, felt real-enough to differentiate it from, say, Warrant’s video for “Heaven.” Jani Lane just looked right into the camera, and all the “home movie” footage looked like regular, glossy MTV footage with some kind of after-effect added in post, and, generally speaking, the whole thing just seemed pretty staged. Whether “Paradise City” was entirely authentic or not is beside the point; Dick did a top-notch job of making it feel authentic, which was enough to sell GN’R's image as a “real” band to kids like Vince and myself, who thought they were the cat’s pajamas.

In that context, it’s difficult to watch Slash’s new video for “Back to Cali” without thinking that it’s intended to be a direct call-back to “Paradise City” — it’s got the grainy B&W footage, the odd and unnecessary use of random Dutch angles, the playing in front of crowds disproportionate to the band’s current success (The “Paradise City” footage was actually filmed when GN’R was opening for Aerosmith; Slash seems to playing mostly European festivals in this video), etc. I don’t know who directed it and I’m not sure why he or she would make such a decision; kids who know Slash as “that dude from Velvet Revolver” won’t remember the “Paradise City” video and won’t care, and I don’t really think it’ll do much for the nostalgia of old bastards like me.

But, uh, whatever, I guess. “Back to Cali” is one of the better songs on Slash’s solo record; it’s basically just blues-based bar rock, which is to say, it plays to Mr. Saul Hudson’s strengths.

And here’s the “Paradise City” video, if you’re one of the aforementioned kids who have never seen it before…

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Look. It’s entirely possible that I give Zakk Wylde more shit than he deserves. We hurt the ones we love the most, and vice versa. When I was a kid, Zakk was a GOD; Vince and I worshiped the ground he walked on. I can’t quite tell if his playing has actually gotten more boring or my tastes have just matured as I’ve gotten older, but I don’t think he has the old magic; Slash isn’t exactly breaking any new ground artistically, but at least he still sounds more or less like Slash. Zakk’s playing has turned into a parody of itself; nevermind that it doesn’t have the grace or scope of No More Tears - it just sounds, at least to my ears, like mindless noodling, with a laughably silly number of those guitar squeals to remind us who’s playing. It would be like if every modern Woody Allen scene had a moment where the Woodman jumps from the bushes and yells “I’M JEWISH! REMEMBER ANNIE HALL?” Yeah, dude. We remember. It was awesome.

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I love reading groupie biographies. It’s sort of a hobby of mine. I’ve read everyone’s, from Pamela Des Barres to Catherine James to Marianne Faithfull (she counts), and am eagerly awaiting the memoirs of Cherry Vanilla, the woman who heroically blew half of New York to get David Bowie on the radio. Some women go sexually apeshit on rock stars, others enjoy reading about it while maintaining a happily gonorrhea-free existence. It’s just how it goes.

When I first heard of The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage, I was rather intrigued. Mind you, I had some preconceptions because of the key words: “slut” and “Iran.” It’s one thing to fuck everyone from Autograph to Winger and write about it, but controversy for the sake of controversy is quite another beast (with two backs, har har).

Though I tried to brush off the combination of these topics as calculated edginess, I couldn’t help but soften to Ms. Roxana Shirazi. Her story runs the gamut from depressingly sad (getting bullied in middle school for being a foreigner) to hilarious (watching as Matt Sorum interrupts himself during a threesome to do push-ups because he’s in ‘such good shape”) to horrifying (falling in love with Dizzy Reed and having to abort his baby). Everything aside, she’s just a girl who loves her rock’n’roll. Naked or otherwise.

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Depending on things like our mood, exhaustion level, and the weather, Vince and I may or may not go see Adler’s Appetite tonight. (I’m a GN’R dork, but I didn’t exactly buy tickets in advance, y’know?) And while it might be interesting to see Mr. Adler live in the flesh up really, really close, I have little doubt that the gig itself will be ridiculous. As I understand it, Adler’s Appetite are basically a GN’R cover band, which I guess doesn’t make them that different from Axl’s Guns N’ Roses or Slash’s solo band, only those bands have the Voice of Guns N’ Roses and the Sound of Guns N’ Roses, and Adler’s Appetite has The Dude People Barely Missed When Matt Sorum Took His Place.

I’m not saying I don’t much prefer Adler’s drumming to Sorum’s — I do. I’m just saying, y’know. He may not be the strongest marketing draw.

Apparently Adler’s Appetite kid themselves by playing originals, too, ’cause they’ve released a snippet of a new single, “Alive.” You get the single as a free download when you buy a copy of Adler’s upcoming, guaranteed to be full of shit autobiography, which comes out in October. I really don’t believe that will attract a ton of extra buyers, though. I also don’t believe that this is an original song; I could have sworn I heard Beautiful Creatures, or maybe it was Brides of Destruction, or possibly one of the new L.A. Guns, yeah, maybe the new old L.A. Guns, or I guess it could have been Vains of Jenna… ANYWAY, I could have SWORN I’d heard another modern cock rock band play this song already. Could have SWORN it.

-AR

We now rejoin Allyson B. Crawford (Bring Back Glam!) and Anso DF (MetalSucks) and their riveting analysis of Glam Metal’s Ten Best Must-Have Records.

Get caught up on yesterday’s action here.

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7. TRASH - Alice Cooper

July 25, 1989 // Epic Records // p: Desmond Child

The hits: “Poison” “Bed of Nails” “House of Fire” “Only My Heart Talkin’”

The heart: “Hell Is Living Without You” “Spark In The Dark” “I’m Your Gun”

Anso: So by 1989′s Trash, Coop had been in a booze stupor for like seven straight albums. The good news was that his successful comeback tour inspired some check-writing at Epic Records. But that support came with strict control, or at least that’s what the presence of Bon Jovi/Kiss/Aerosmith/Ratt hit-maker Desmond Child implies. So Allyson, what’s your stance on Desmond Child?

Allyson: I got to interview Alice Cooper once. One of the highlights of my life, I swear. The man rules. He was all about sobriety when we spoke and I think that’s awesome. Now, Desmond Child. Oh my. I’ve written about him before on Bring Back Glam!. I suppose he is — no, he is a genius, but damn. Aerosmith is my favorite band of all time and Child sort of took away their grit. So that hurt. But for some people he really, really helped and that’s Alice Cooper. Alice needed a hit for a new generation and Trash came along at the right time, didn’t it? Oh and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to meet and interview Desmond Child, so there you go.

Anso: Hey, same here! His stuff is mega-cheesy, but so are delicious Cheetos. Plus, Detonator rules, so it’s easy to forgive misfires like “I Was Made For Lovin’ You.” Oh and of course I warmed to him after VH1 aired that hilarious footage of his collaboration with (and antagonism of) Vince Neil. You saw that right? “Hello-o! Successs!”

Allyson: Yeah, I’ve seen that. Oh, I’ve seen it.

Anso: Okay, Trash was buffed up by a full whack of celebrity guests: Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi, Kip Winger, Guy Mann-Dude, Steve Lukather, and 80% of Aerosmith. I suppose they helped pull chicks and young people to this old man record. Did these guys make Trash more attractive to you in any way?

Allyson: Because I’m a chick? Well, here’s the thing about me. I’ll agree there are some hot guys in rock, but that doesn’t mean much to me when it comes to music I like. If the song rocks, awesome. If not, okay. I like tons of music that is mocked — often right here on MetalSucks, ha! — and I always “go my own way if you will.” Trash is awesome to me because I love the songs. “Only My Heart Talkin’” is a great love song, a completely different type of power ballad. But, back to guests. I usually don’t care about guest stars on albums. I buy records because I want to hear the real band — not a slew of guests, you know?

Anso: Yeah. I’m not an Alice Cooper scholar, but I’ll wager that Trash is his sexiest record. It’s a bit uncomfortable to hear a 41-year old Coop describe passionate banging.

Allyson: As you know, my dear Anso, sexy is in the eyes of the beholder.

Anso: Hey, let’s talk about Trash‘s super-hit, “Poison.” Can you think of any single in history with such a memorably quirky riff? It’s awesome on its own and I love how they set it against different chords in the intro.

Allyson: So I’ve talked to Alice guitarist Keri Kelli a few times. Once I said I was frustrated trying to learn bass and guitar parts for some Alice songs. And Keri said something like, “Look, if you want to learn ‘Poison’ it’s just going to take awhile.” This frustrated me because I have little patience. I think I got off the phone with Keri, looked at the guitar and then sat down with a bag of chips or something. Anyway, yes, “Poison” is freaking epic. One of the best songs of the ’80s. Then again, Alice is a master. I love when the band performs “Poison” live. The crowd always goes batshit crazy.

Anso: What else makes you love this record?

Allyson: Hmm. It’s the sum of its parts I guess. I think all the songs fit well together, there’s not really a dud and the album helped push Alice to the top again. The cover photo is iconic. It was in magazines first and then Alice chose it as his cover — so I remember seeing the image of Alice everywhere as a kid. I had this instant connection to the record I suppose.

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I’m filing this under the “Laugh At Others’ Misfortunes” category because it’s always funny to see people that aren’t you get hurt. But the truth is, the incidents in question aren’t nearly on par with, say, Bret Michaels getting whacked in the head at last year’s Tony Awards, mostly because they’re not really brought about by outrageous acts of stupidity, whereas Michaels’ injury was clearly, despite his claims, entirely of his own doing.

First, some dude managed to get up on stage during a Slash solo gig in Milan and tackle the frizzy haired guitarist. Note that Slash barely even stops his solo – apparently his guitar was broken after the incident, but he didn’t even notice at first. What a pro! (And don’t worry, my fellow guitar fetishists – the instrument was repaired and back in action two nights later.) Still, if the guy shouted “PARADISE CITY WITH FERGIE AND CYPRESS HILL SUCKS!” right before he tackled Slash, then he’s my hero.

Here it is at another angle; skip to 1:18:

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So Maynard James Keenan has said that Tool are working on their next album, and that “If it comes together” they may even play some new shit live this summer. I’m always totally down for some new Tool, so I won’t even say what we’re all thinking, which is “It might be nice to a get a new Tool album in under five years for a change.” I mean, we’d heard that Tool were in writing mode back in 2008, but whatever. It’s Tool. If they need that time to make the best possible record that they can, I’ll go along with it.

But a new Tool album was always a foregone conclusion; the band may very well break our hearts and throw in the towel one day, but we are (very luckily) not there yet.

So more interesting, in a way, is the news that writing has begun on a new album for A Perfect Circle. Not “more interesting” in a APC > Tool way, ’cause, come ON, that would just be a ridiculous argument to try and make. Interesting in the “Oh, cool, A Perfect Circle really aren’t done” kinda way.

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I tried to land an interview with Slash when his solo album came out, but, alas, it was not to be. (Must be ’cause of all the nice things I’ve said about him over the past couple of years.) But one of the things I wanted to ask him about were how involved, or uninvolved, he was with the lyrics on the album. Each song is sung by a different celebrity singer who would be perfectly capable of writing his or her own lyrics, and the few times Slash has tried to lyrics, the results have been pretty disastrous. (Remember “Be the Ball,” the Slash’s Snakepit song about pinball? Yeah, no reason you would, but did I mention it’s about fucking pinball?) But the lyrics to at least one song in particular – the Ozzy-crooned “Crucify the Dead” – seemed so Slash-specific, I thought he might have had a hand in them.

See, “Crucify the Dead” features such lyrics as “Your ego cursed you till you bled,” “Decisions past leave you alone,” “Someday you look back and you wonder why you let it all slip away,” and a reference to – CAPTAIN OBVIOUS ALERT! – “A loaded gun jammed by a rose.” So, y’know. It seemed pretty clear that the song was aimed at one of Slash’s former collaborators. And I don’t mean Rod Jackson.

Well, Ozzy has answered my question – kind of – in a recent interview with VH1 Radio:

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Slash allegedly plays on the new Rihanna single, “Rockstar 101.” I say “allegedly” because there’s barely any guitar in the damn song, and what guitar there is sounds like it could have been played by just about anyone with fingers and five free minutes to spend in the studio. But apparently the guitars are by Slash, and he was supposed to be in the video, too, but couldn’t make it ’cause I guess he afraid he was gonna make Fergie jealous. So Rihanna decided she was just gonna dress-up as Slash, which is, uh, an interesting solution.

Meanwhile, Nuno Bettencourt is part of Rihanna’s band now, and he’s in the video, but he never gets a close-up. In fact, most of the time he’s either in the background or out-of-focus.

So, to review: Rihanna would rather have a fake Slash in her video than a real Nuno.

Swell.

-AR