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[littlefallsmets]

Nope. Axl is the only original Gunner on it and, indeed, Dizzy the piano player is the only other guy from any other GNR iteration and he didn't show up until the Use Your Illusion albums. In fact, Izzy Straddlin's the only original guy he's even on good enough terms with to even thank in the liner notes. But that's kind of part of the fun mythology of the thing too, you know.

Axl, holed up in Xanadu, working harder on the enemies list than the album.

 

[Toaster]

Axl, holed up in Xanadu, working harder on the enemies list than the album.

Kane'd?

[Golfhaus]

I stopped reading to check out the validity of one of your statements, and holy shit you're right, if only by the slimmest of margins.

Use Your Illusion I and II: released September 17, 1991
Nevermind: released September 24, 1991

"The Spaghetti Incident?" and people cooler than the rest of us notwithstanding, the last time G'n'R put out a real album, no one knew who the fuck Kurt Cobain was. That is mind-boggling. In my head, Cobain has an omnipresence - that 1990-1992 timeframe was where I first started to capital-A Appreciate music, so on my own little personal journey, he was always there. That that week could spell both a beginning and an end to two iconic bands amazes me.

That would have also been the second or third week of my freshman year of high school. That might explain some things.

[theinevitable]

"The Spaghetti Incident?" and people cooler than the rest of us notwithstanding, the last time G'n'R put out a real album, no one knew who the fuck Kurt Cobain was.

His mom knew who he was, and that's all that REALLY matters in life.

[littlefallsmets]

Whereas I was twelve and, man, the Illusion albums were my WORLD for like a year.

And then I skipped over most of grunge and went straight to my dad's old prog albums.

Kurt Cobain, to me, was a dude who wrote some interesting lyrics and showed good taste in cover material on the Unplugged album but the three-man-band post-punk thing just did not speak to me. A dude wanted pianos and solos and strings and Hammond B3s and choruses and Moogs and delay-boxes, you know? When I found my dad's stash of Pink Floyd and King Crimson and Steely Dan, it was ALL fuckin' over.

And, I mean, if Use Your Illusion was anything, it was a guy weened on Led Zepplin tentatively trying to turn into a harder version of Yes.

Which is why when I did lean toward the music of the day, it was toward the excesses of the Smashing Pumpkins and later Ben Folds and so on.

I think that Cobain was growing into something interesting but, yeah, Nirvana was not a THING for me.

You could argue that in the rural Adirondacks we were five years behind the times but there we are.

[Golfhaus]

Don't get me wrong; I don't wish to downplay the role the Illusions played in my teenage years. I played the crap out of them. At the time, I probably thought GnR was more relevant than Nirvana. It wasn't until much later that I realized what Nirvana represented, and literally didn't recognize the torch-passing that went on until reading (the first third of) your missive and went researching.

I discovered Pink Floyd in the summer between junior and senior year, and they quickly became my favorite band, despite my first exposure being The Division Bell (Take it Back has just been released as a single) and my second exposure being Ummagumma. They still are, though I reserve playing their music for times when I need them, like depressive moments or times of extreme duress.

I will always remember my "What the FUCK" moment watching Axl and Elton make a duet out of the end of Bohemian Rhapsody during the Freddie Mercury concert on MTV. Oh, MTV, the things you could be doing... SHOULD be doing... for the youth today. How many MTV viewers today even know who Freddie Mercury is?

How many know who Axl Rose is?

[jaydub]

Oh, MTV, the things you could be doing... SHOULD be doing... for the youth today. How many MTV viewers today even know who Freddie Mercury is?
How many know who Axl Rose is?

How many know the M in MTV stood originally for "music"?  As opposed to "meh".

[littlefallsmets]

Yeah. Legally, "Least-Expensive-Reality-Programming-Available Television" shouldn't be able to call itself MTV anymore.

Some kind of false advertising thing. Whenever the lawyers from Gitmo are freed up, they oughta get on that.

[CortJstr]

I thought the letters in MTV didn't stand for anything anymore. Like AMC, TLC, GSN, or NARAL.

[pmcd9]

Guns and Roses are giving away cans of Dr Pepper

[STORY]

[Limmo]

Chinese Democracy review in the form of an SAT question:

Appetite For Destruction is to a really great plate of tacos

as Chinese Democracy is to this.

[theinevitable]

Wait...

that was really funny.

I didn't know they were making funny skits again.

"Pizza! Now that's what I call a taco!"

[pmcd9]

I have a Guns and Roses story. 

Back when Appetite for Destruction was at the top of the charts or thereabouts I was out with some friends who played the cassette on their car radio on endless repeat.  Their favorite song was Mr. Brownstone because they were junkies.

I was out with these cats and there was like six of us in the car.  We were going out to see Krista's mother for some reason, I can't remember.  Anyway, The cassette switched sides and that was it, she had played all she was going to play.  When the music started up again it was dragging and sounded all fucked up and garbled like it was getting eaten by the player.  They ejected, it wasn't getting eaten it was just wore out.  They put it back in and it continued to sound funny.  They kept ejecting and putting it back in and it never improved anything and it was starting to get annoying because of course we were listening to it at max volume.

So finally after about 10 minutes of this I said, hey, I know how to fix it, let me see the tape.  They ejected the tape and handed it to me and I threw it out the open window of the moving car.  They were all like What The Fuck did you do that for.  I tried to calmly explain that the tape was shot, there wasn't anything they could do about it except get another copy.

I thought they would see reason and let it go, but no, they turned the car around and went back to look for it.  Unfortunately they found it. 

But then a miracle occurred, when they put the tape in the deck it played.  Throwing it out the window fixed it apparently.  All the rest of the way out to Krista's Mom's house it played and my friends kinda looked at me like I had some special power.

Of course on the way back the tape started crapping out again.  They wouldn't let me throw it out the window a second time the fuck*ng non believers.

[AugustWest]

Paul, You..Are..Rad

[littlefallsmets]

And that's all Axl's asking for, really.

The belief that ridiculous action can lead to miraculous results.

That and so much cocaine that only he or David Bowie could survive ingesting it.