Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns n’ Roses, Stephen Davis (Michael Joseph 2008)
The back cover calls the book “AN EPIC TALE OF EXCESS, DEBAUCHERY, ADDICTION, PARANOIA, MANIA AND GREAT F**KING MUSIC”. It gets five out of six right. Stephen Davis is also the author of the Led-Zeppography Hammer of the Gods, first published in 1985. Since then, his writing has got better and his subjects have got worse. I don’t like Led Zeppelin much and I don’t think Robert Plant is a very good singer. But Led Zep sound good set beside Guns n’ Roses. They sound subtle too. A few of GNR’s songs start well. I forget what happens to them after that. As for “November Rain”… Sheesh. It’s so wrong on so few levels that it’s probably prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Yes, you understand American foreign policy better after hearing – and watching – what GNR do to rock music:
Niven cautions that Guns didn’t think Spinal Tap was funny. (ch. 6, “The Big Guns n’ Roses Adventure”, pg. 159)
But the main explanation for what’s wrong with GNR isn’t that they found success while based in Los Angeles. That isn’t fatal for a band. Mötley Crüe did too, but they are entertainingly cartoonish. GNR are obnoxiously cartoonish. No, the main explanation for what’s wrong with GNR is simple: W. Axl Rose. Davis holds his nose – hard – and takes the lid off the kid from Lafayette, Indiana. Racism, sexism, homophobia, killing small dogs – it’s all here in unflinching detail. But Axl has a bad side too. And the cycling shorts are by no means the worst of it. There’s also the plagiarism:
Then something crucial happened. Photographer Robert John took Axl to see a group he was shooting: Shark Island, the house band at Gazzari’s on the Strip. Shark Island was supposed to be a great metal band, but they were too fond of melodies, plus their hair was all wrong, and so they would never break out of the L.A. metal circuit. But Richard Black, Shark Island’s lead singer, was a charismatic front man with killer stage moves, the kind of small-venue choreography that could make a packed club break out in a communal, drenching sweat and get the joint rocking on its foundations. Axl watched Richard Black with total fascination and then proceeded to appropriate his act. …
According to Robert John, “In Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns, Axl jumped straight up and down, holding onto the mike stand for balance. Axl later admitted he’d got the whole snake move, that S-curve, from Richard. He once told me that he even wanted Richard to somehow get credit for this. Most of Axl’s moves” – the headlong run across the stage, the furious stomp, holding the mike stand straight out with both hands, the blatantly sexual snake dance – “that’s all Richard Black.” (ch. 4, “The Treacherous Journey”, pp. 60-1)
In a better world, Shark Island might have had the big success and GNR the bit-part in their four-hundred-page biography. But success would probably have corrupted Shark Island too and swollen Richard Black’s head. Still, it’s impossible to believe that they would ever have become as bloated and excessive as GNR or that Black could ever have out-assholed Axl. GNR are one of the Big Three among the bands that I hate. The other two are The Clash and Oasis. But GNR are odious in a more entertaining way than those two. I can’t imagine even picking up a biography of The Clash. And if I ever try a biography of Oasis, it will be strictly out of primatological interest. This, on the other hand, is a readable book about risible people. I couldn’t read all of it, but it’s hard to believe Stephen Davis doesn’t sometimes feel the same about the people:
One time, after [Bret] Michael [of Poison] had slagged Guns, Axl confronted Poison backstage and told them, to their face, that they sucked. Bobby Dall, whose band already had a record deal, replied: “Maybe fucking so – but you gotta suck, sometimes, to make it in this business – and you guys will never make it at all.”
This stuck in Axl’s craw. Sucking was against everything W. Axl Rose believed in. (ch. 3, “The Treacherous Journey”, pp. 74-5)
That’s funny and I hope that Davis meant it to be. But the joke wears thin well before the end of this book. Okay, three of the band – Axl, Slash and Duff McKagan – looked good for a bit, early on, but the best thing GNR ever did was inspire this article in The Guardian:
Minute five: Is mainly taken up with Slash being a rock god. For those readers who are unfamiliar with this song – which is possibly a criminal act, may I add – you know when Regina Spektor sings “The solo’s real long, but it’s a pretty song” in “On the Radio”? This is the solo she means.
A helicopter flies around Slash, giving us rockgodness from all angles, although possibly putting his cigarette out in the process, which is not a bad thing, as it will kill you.
Smoking, I mean, not guitar solos. Although if any guitar solo could kill, it would be this one. You can tell Slash is a rock god because his stance is so wide he is almost doing the splits. (Read on: Guns N’ Roses – November Rain)
Elsewhere other-posted:
• More Musings on Music
hahahahaha
Slash’s signature look is that he wears a top hat on his head. After he quit, they replaced him with Buckethead, whose signature look is that he wears a KFC bucket on his head. Obviously they’re the last to know when they’ve become a self-parody. Current guitarist DJ Ashba apparently ghost-wrote much of the last Motley Crue album (their first listenable album in 15 years, I might add), so there are some talented musicians in Guns and Roses. It’s just a shame about Axl Rose screwing everything up. Hopefully people will stop giving him large sums of money soon.
…whose signature look is that he wears a KFC bucket on his head.
When Buckethead was in the band, I wondered whether Axl was satirizing himself or his former bandmates. But I don’t think so. And he plagiarized the cycling shorts too, apparently:
…so there are some talented musicians in Guns and Roses. It’s just a shame about Axl Rose screwing everything up.
Yes, Velvet Revolver weren’t obnoxious. And I suppose it’s Liam Gallagher who was the main problem with Oasis. And the compression and crudity of their music.
It was a weird choice. Buckethead’s a guitar nerd who practices sweep-picking in his bedroom all day. Not the kind of guy who molests groupies with mud-sharks, which is what you’d expect from this band,.
Loud music sux. The last Metallica has a few decent songs, but I can barely listen to it because the mastering is painful. Literally painful. At loud volumes, Lars’ snare is like getting kicked in the head by a horse. I suspect my inner ear hears loud clipped-off sounds, thinks it’s bombs or an earthquake, and triggers a mild flight-or-fight response.
A cover band called Clipping Death has re-recorded old Metallica songs with modern production, to show how ghastly it sounds. The actual Metallica has announced plans to record another album with Rick Rubin, so I suppose it will sound the same, except maybe a bit louder. They used to be my favourite band, but they have no sense anymore, and are overdue for a breakup.
The actual Metallica has announced plans to record another album with Rick Rubin, so I suppose it will sound the same, except maybe a bit louder. They used to be my favourite band, but they have no sense anymore, and are overdue for a breakup.
Yes, when they were good, they were very good. Diamond Head + Motörhead = Metallica. But I think the rot began to set in with And Justice For All…. And nowadays Lars apparently thinks the keyly core criterion for a record is that it sound smokin’ on his car-stereo. Another reason for me to dislike G’n’R and Oasis: