For many years, members of the KISS army have cried out at the unjustified dismissing of KISS when the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame (self-titled) selects entrants for its ‘illustrious’ records. Yes, this group of nobodies who have contributed nothing to the world of rock ‘n’ roll (Actually,I should be a member) get to choose bands it deems worthy of taking a chunk of metal (or plastic or something) home and playing a song for their wage paying attendees.
Previous inductees have included Madonna, RUN-DMC, Randy Newman, Public Enemy, ABBA and many more prominent names in the world of rock. Unfortunately for KISS, they just didn’t have what it takes to beat out the aforementioned names to get inducted any sooner than 2014 – a full fifteen years after they first became eligible. Then again, why would they be any different than the less popular acts from rock history, such as Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple and Motorhead?
What’s most unfortunate for KISS is that while they’ve spent many years calling the HOF a joke, they actually agreed to the nomination when it came up and managed to destroy almost everything they stand for (stood for – Ed.) in the months leading up to their induction. The band that once spread a message of love and fun for four full decades have been reduced to bitter, nasty name callers and shameless behaviour. What should have been one united KISS telling the R’N’R HOF to go f*** themselves, as The Sex Pistols did in 2007 – respect; devolved into ridicule, pathetic controversy and petty sniping remarks – mostly from Paul Stanley, the beloved star child.
Paul, Gene – I love you guys. But f*** you and your bad mouthing of Ace and Peter. We all know they were there for the best of the best albums. Yes they are not the be-all and end-all of lead guitarists and drummers in your history and you have your differences, but they are the most prominent in your discography and nothing can change that. You can show them respect and resist resorting to childish, undignified name calling and bitching to the press. You are in your sixties, at least try to act mature.
To Tommy and Eric (and Vinnie, Mark and Bruce) you are all worth much more than this bullsh*t and not having your names on some stupid statue does not make the music you have written, recorded and performed any better, any worse or any less important to the people that love it. You are all part of KISS and it’s important not to let some bunch of over the hill nobodies try to dictate that. But tell Gene and Paul to cop on, they seem to have forgotten the whole point of the band.
The Hall of Fame does not get print on Tickets There anymore and I’m sorry I had to break the rule for this article. It will not happen again – not even when Def Leppard eventually come up for nomination….er, oh yeah – they’ve not been waiting for ten years now. Well thank God Randy fucking Newman is in there or we’d all be in shit. Oops, swears broke out.
Anyone else in the pub last night at 17:59 for a toast to Arthur Guinness? Tickets There was but regrettably, there wasn’t a huge crew out. Ah well, quiet nights happen and when there’s free Guinness going around, a small crowd wont complain about having to fill the void 😉
What the hell was with the TV celebrations though? Every time I looked at what was going on it couldn’t have looked any dryer! All I saw was English and Welsh people over here playing to crowds who couldn’t have looked less enthusiastic. The Blizzards (in Vicar Street I Think) were so fucking terrible I could get over it. I suddenly felt an urge to rip up that post about no doing any more negative MySpace Reviews. Although, compared to Jamie Cullen, David Gray, The Enemy, that fucking presenter in Whelan’s asking every fucking band about “seeing the Whites in peoples eyes”, that knob end Ronan Keating looking like a …I don’t know what, some sort of beautified Emo. I’m pretty sure Tom Jones and Cat Deeley’s legs were the only saving grace of the whole evening.
Now I know this blog has a name for being negative but my thoughts about the coverage were shared by every single other person in the pub. As the Blizzards played I told one of the lads about the review I gave them and his comment was “Why were you so nice”. So fuck this. Those shitty, arse hole bands aren’t music. This country and primarily Dublin (because there’s enough students and scene queens around) is doing it’s best to create a vibrant music scene and cultural paradise when there’s fuck all substance to back it up.
The singer / song writer scene is dead, the emo/rockish/pop/punk music that most of the bands play is terrible. Half these aren’t musicians and a lot of them don’t have any talent. They’re sucking people in because they look the part, but they don’t fucking sound it. I have zero respect or appreciation for the music scene in Dublin. It’s swamped by a never ending parade of kids with no talent and so called bands with absolutely no musical talent, originality or character and they pawn of half written disasters with quirky noises and philosophical story lines (involing when they used to love transformers on a Saturday and the simple joys of a grilled Mars bar) under the guise of music. Its all explained off course by artist license and let’s all get along and enjoy it. Well that would be fine off course expect now there seems to be more of them than ever and I’m not sure if anyone’s noticed, but anytime they play an actual venue, the crowd is half full at fucking best! Anyone wonder why that is huh?
I remember last year heading along to Ham Sandwich who were one of the biggest underground bands on the go and the Village was a third full. Same thing when I say Director and they were the biggest crowd….for those bands. Interest in these groups seems to last as long as their songs. Anyone know why groups like The Beatles, U2, The Rolling Stones, Guns N Roses, Abba and every other major band still pack a crowd and get played in every pub almost every night while these newer groups (some of which have been in the go for up to ten years) still cant crack the mainstream, play a sold out show in the own country (in a venue that holds more than thirty people) or even get on a real radio station for more than one single??? It’s because they’re crap. They’re not music, they’re just shit. The songs aren’t songs, they’re college kids/unemployed talentless people doing their very best to destroy any chance for real bands and really talented people to ever make it through to the main stream. If they can’t learn a guitar, they all of sudden become a photographer or a DJ (or a music writer – Ed). Anyone else ever notice how many photographers there are in Dublin these days? And they all photograph the same fucking things over and over and over again, always trying to make it more deep by doing it in black and white. Or this visuals lot haha, oh sweet lord!
Hopefully one day kids will cop on and if they really love music the way they bullshit then hopefully they’ll stop endorsing groups like ‘The Blizzards’ and give their time to a real band. And stop fucking downloading, these groups do actually need money to survive and continue to make records.
Anyways, that’s enough of a Friday morning rant. Arthur’s day celebrations were shit but the Guinness, the Guinness is still king!
Richard Hell, that’s the name of the guy I was trying to remember when I started looking through some punk sites this evening. Anyone out there know him? Anyways, doesn’t matter. What got to me was the fact that every time I searched for punk, I was bombarded with article after article and picture after picture of bands like Green Day, The Offspring, NOFX, New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, Sum 41 and the terrible Less Than Jake and I couldn’t help feeling that punk fans and the bands have watered down the music so badly that it’s no wonder people don’t even have respect for The Sex Pistols anymore!
Now, I know the world has a hell of a lot of very, very backward, stupidly stupid people in it but I would try and entertain the idea that even the simplest minded ‘punk rock’ fan does know why the whole thing started in the first place, but I could be wrong. For those of you who don’t know there’s one thing to get straight before you ever mention the bands, before you hear a note of the music, before you even think of shaving all but the middle of your head and tearing your cloths and before you even consider pogoing. That’s the simple fact that ‘Punk’ and ‘Punk rock’ are two very, very separate things. One is about being young, having dreams and ideals with a strength, determination and resolve never to let anyone stand in the way of you achieving them, no matter what the circumstances. Similar to the dreams of hippies from the sixties, Punk’s were about equality, individualism, originality and the notion that we can be anything we want to be. ‘Punk Rock’ is about hair styles, fashion, image, appearance, cliché ideals, un-originality, conforming all backed by a particular driving sound that helps sell the image. Obviously it’s the former idea that excites true fans of music history.
Although Punk music’s origins started in the States with bands like MC5, The New York Dolls, The Stooges and The Ramones, it took four young Londoners to pack all of those ideals and aspirations along with youthful angst and satirical commentary on modern society to make an album that would change the course of music forever. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols may be the best known and widely loved Punk album of all time but unlike most of the other punk rock albums out there, such as American Idiot and Out Come the Wolves, it’s an honour well deserved. But we’ll talk more about the Pistols and their legacy later.
Now you may think I’m being a little hard on modern punk bands because of the cloths they wear and the image they promote. ‘Why not?’, you ask, ‘who’s it hurting anyway?’. Well there’s a very simple answer to that question. It’s not hurting anyone. What it did was kill one of music’s most original and best efforts at provoking younger people to take pride in themselves, no matter how they looked or what people told them they could amount to. It pushed them to be creative and stand out from a world inhabited by mindless, happy to be controlled sheep. People who had long since given up their attempts at creativity or any hope or longing to just be themselves and not hide behind fashion or popular thought. The kind of people you see everyday that are so competitive and worried about standing out. People who are so worried about other people’s opinion that they cower away with the flock and spend their time sneering and spitting on anyone else that does have that courage to be themselves. You see them everywhere; It starts in school and lasts for the rest of their lives. How many times have you heard people taking endless amounts of crap on subjects like religion, politics, history, the recession, current social and political conflicts and trends? You know those loud mouths who talk and talk about these issues and you can hand pick every comment they make and know full well the film, rumour, hearsay or book they took it from in order to pass it of as their own, without even attempting to look further into the subject, take all points of view into consideration and voice their own, thought out opinion? Well if you can’t remember several times like this it probably just means you’re one of them or you you’re living in Plato’s cave (no philosophical similarity intended).
This may all sound a little off the point when you’re talking about punk music but that’s the point, it’s not off the topic. Those people who do think for themselves were and are punks. ‘Punk Rockers’ you see these days aren’t and I justify that comment with one very simple answer. They’re not punks, because they look like punks. That right there defeats the whole idea punk music started with. The foundation was about being different and not conforming to any system (system not solely meaning government, system refers to any system of control whether it be music, fashion or anything else). So, when the golden punk ideal became watered down with ripped trousers, hair styles and a particular sound, it signalled the end for one of music’s most exacting times.
In the mid-seventies, several punk rock bands of note and influence sprang out of England. Acts like The Jam, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, The Damned and Siouxsie and the Banshees, to name a few, but The Sex Pistols still managed to stand out above all the competition. These days it’s hard to look back and justify why the Pistols had such a strong influence at the time. Peoples minds are clouded with overweight fifty year olds, flogging a dead hoarse every few years for cash, the once scary, sneering Johnny Rotten now dressed in tweed selling butter and taking part in shows like Celebrity Jungle and the cliché of clichés, Mr. Punk Icon himself Sid Vicious’ image over used a billion times by people drinking in cocktail bars who couldn’t name a song the Pistols ever wrote, let alone any of Sid’s solo work. In Tickets There’s opinion there are justifications for all those actions. The Pistols never made any money when they started so why not let them now?, Sid wasn’t being a cliché punk at the time, he was one of the people who invented it, not copied it and Johnny, well Johnny can do what ever the hell he likes because he’s Johnny Rotten. But whether you agree or disagree, none of that can ever hamper their years together as a group and the impact their music and their short time together had on the world.
I say time because the Pistols influence goes deeper than the music. As I mentioned earlier, Punk and Punk Rock are two different things. The Pistols played punk rock in a band but they were punks. At least they started off that way. Their first two years together showed a band going through absolute hell in order to get their point across to the world. They may look like your typical punks and their lyrics, speeches and general attitude may resemble your traditional punk but that’s where it started. They were noting more than kids who had more talent that they were ever given credit for. Four kids angry at society, angry at the world around them who wanted to make a difference or at the very least get laid and have a laugh. They didn’t set out to shock the people at first, they just said what they wanted and that started all the controversy. They may have been naive and miss-lead but they weren’t fake and once they realized what was happening and that they were merely becoming the main attraction in a circus being built up around them they stopped. They simply refused to conform. That’s Punk! You can argue that Jonny leaving and Sid’s death had more to do with it than a general decision but the point is they didn’t carry on after their first album. They didn’t put the head down and deal with the ever growing joke their manager was trying to turn their efforts into and carry on for the sake of massive pay cheques and fame, two of music’s main pitfalls for many iconic artists. The band didn’t want to become manikins or puppets. They were strong willed kids who knew what they had started was too special to kill by opting for an easy life. That is why the Pistols will always be one step above all the other acts from that time, their actual refusal to conform, rather than their musical output. It just helps that Nevermind the Bollocks is the greatest Punk Rock album aswell.
Green Day, Rancid and bands like that? Guys wearing suits and ties with pretty hair trying to sing about their pain while they try and remember if they turned the pool heater of or not. Or guys covered in tattoos except on their hands and face so they can still conform and hide what they pretend to be when needed. Guys decked out in expensive leather, all the wallet chain’s, spikes, bracelets, accessories and quirky necklaces and t-shirts top dollar can buy. That’s not punk, that’s nothing but commercialisms orange parade to celebrate the fact that nothing on this earth can remain special, nothing can be left untouched by the greedy hand of economy and commercialism. Proof that no matter how pure and simple something is, someone out there will always exploit it, make it a product and tap a ‘target market’ and no matter how great the people behind it are and how strong their message is, the ever eager and obeying flock are always waiting to infiltrate, tear apart, burn down and destroy the goodness others have worked and longed for.
Shock, horror, amazement and astonishment. The blandest band in the world, Radiohead, actually played their biggest hit, Creep on Sunday night. Just saw the report on NME and I was almost bowled over with laughter. What sort of band headlines any huge show like that and ‘surprises’ the audience by playing the song everyone but the hardcore fanatics wants to hear. Like Metallica not playing Enter Sandman or Journey not playing Don’t Stop Believing.
This isn’t really a surprise though, Radiohead are a major part of the ever growing new breed of obnoxious bands that are dominating today’s musical landscape. If they’re not irritating pop/rock hairdressers, then they’re Radiohead wannabe’s or even worse, they’re Coldplay. I don’t understand how bands can be so arrogant and pompous to play shows of this size and act like they’re doing their fans a favor by playing a song like this. What’s worse is people put up with it. Why don’t you spend your money and time on bands who are grateful for your dedication and do exactly what you want on stage. I hear lots of Radiohead fans complaining about their newer albums and only the odd fanatic defending them as genius but the band still insist on filling up their set lists with a host of tracks from these records, rather than playing the music the people want to hear.
KISS are starting their world tour this month and you can damn well bet they won’t fill their set up with B-Side Eighties releases and new material. They play what the fans want them to play. Hell, they even let the fans map the tour for them. That’s what you want from a bands live show. Not two hours of ego fulfilling, time wasting nonsense.
What’s that you say, they even brought blue lights and cylinders on stage with them?? Wow, what excitement for those of you who were lucky enough to be there. How could you focus on the two hours of mediocre whining from a man so stuck up his own arse even Bono would have trouble competing when there was all that amazing technical wizardry going on around them…..sarcasm for those of you who didn’t get it. I’m all for letting the music do the talking, heck that’s my argument for Axl Roses current activities and the Chinese Democracy problems but if a band headlines a festival like this, wouldn’t it be nice if they did something special on stage and give people a truly epic show to remember. Not two f**king hours of tired old beer commercial references, cylinders, little snips of technical difficulties and the highlight of highlights, playing a song the whole crowd would know.
When Nirvana headlined |Reading in 1992, they opened with a play on the rumor of Kurt’s ill-health, shocking the audience before Kurt leaped from a wheelchair and burst into Breed. They followed with a 27 song set that included all their hits,. Remember, this was a band with two albums. Radiohead have seven albums and only managed 23 tracks which barley scraped the surface of their hits and had no frills.
Wake up folks and try to understand what a real band does and what posers, fakes and pricks like ‘the head’ do and see which you’d enjoy better.
What happened folks? In the mid 50’s, Mr. Elvis A. Presley walked into Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee and became the very first, the best, the symbol, legend, embodiment and icon of rock n roll. Like Sid Vicious to Punk, Frank Sinatra to big band, Johnny Cash to country and western or even Dana to lunatics, Elvis was the total hero, founder and creator of rock n roll. Don’t listen to music nerds, geeks and critics (ahem), Elvis started everything. Forget who influenced him, forget who wrote for him and forget who marketed him, Elvis was it.
Ever since the Kings death, music has flourished through the efforts, talents and hard work, creativity of various people and constant changes in popular culture. From Elvis, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis in the fifties, rock expanded and produced the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and many others throughout the early sixties. Before long Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, The Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and many more appeared. The Doors came out of the west coast.The Who went rock, Led Zeppelin were formed and Jefferson Airplane stayed touring after Woodstock. Just before things could get civilized, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple came out. Queen, Clapton, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stooges, Alice Cooper, T-Rex, KISS,…the list is endless people. Then came the 80’s, when pop reached a true peak before the ever looming wave of commercialism took it’s firm grip and strangled the genre, until it’s credibility was lower than Gary Glitters. On the other hand you had Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Guns N Roses, Def Leppard, Whitesnake, U2, Judas Priest, OZZY, Slayer, Sepultura, before the end of the decade when Nirvana, The Chilli Peppers, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Blur, Oasis, The Stone Roses, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Smiths, The Pixies, Joy Division, The Happy Mondays, New Order (yes the 24 lot), Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails and then (phew this is a long one) onto Marilyn Manson, The Foo Fighters, Weezer, Korn and so on before the late nineties and boom…nothing happened……funnily enough, fuck all has happened since. How in the hell did almost five decades of amazing, astonishing and diverse creation suddenly grind to an almost complete stop?
Things seemed to fall completely off course. Metal bands suddenly merged rapidly with dance music and rap. Korn had dabbled but so did Aersomith and nothing happened to them. Instead of Angus Young and the D belting out solid, hard hitting blues rock anthems you had fat ugly guys in costumes roaring at you about being bullied and still being virgins living in their mothers houses. Metro sexual, stylish geeks whining on about falling and crying about some girl next door that Lemmy would probably kidnap and turn into a hooker on sun-set before the night’s out. These guys in fitted suits, wearing ties with spiky hair, tattoos and dog collars were mixing Kraftwork with the eighties glam rockers like Twisted Sister, Poison and the likes while wearing their hair like girls. And I don’t mean the old style of hairy bikers drooling over a bar counter girly style, I mean a female hairdresser on a night out style. Like they were trying to keep disobeying the nagging disapproval from generations past and pushing things to some ridiculous limit that nearly goes full circle.
As for Pop music, that fell into the hands of TV companies, dance got old and turned into some demented, hindered state of destruction while indie music became overwhelmed by a horde of Eco-Friendly, Voices of poverty, injustice, animal cruelty and environmentally conscious millennium hippies. Voices that turned away from Indies recreational drug use, love and loss, party image and transformed it into a voice for all the issues in the world rock stars shouldn’t give two shits about, at least not on stage. The likes of Tom Yorke, Chris Martin, Bono, Snow Patrol, Kings of Leon, Kasabian and all that other horse shit. Their songs were so impotent, corpses of tax attorneys could laugh at them. Complaining, moaning and whining about the poverty and cruelty in the world they wouldn’t think of donating their profits to. Bands that appeal to societies total dregs. Bored children, housewife’s, grandparents, indie fans, jocks and just about every member of the heard the western world boasts. Droning brought to extremes of the human soul to a point it becomes so bogged down in ego, insincerity and boredom it would fail to shock a timid kitten.
Metal fell even more of the pits as the old genres piled up with hopeless hack impersonators before bursting at the seems into millions of decaying breakaways. Nu-Metal even buckled (not a bad thing, pile of shite aswell) as Emo broke through their last stand along with nu-punk and metal became even more appealing to the ugly, fat rejects of social society and the fashionable, jock culture more than ever before. After Radiohead’sCreep on the jukebox American Idiot and the Killers would follow and all the trendy’s and Goths alike would bop along. Metal was again infiltrated by main stream culture and unlike before the last ‘icons’ weren’t strong enough to tear it right back for the people of society who used the music as it should be used. Not for pusses crying and ugly nerds to find shelter. Metal is the music for the angry soul (sounds gay I know but hey, I am smoking in case you hadn’t noticed), the serious partiers, the ‘dangerous’ people of society.
Rock N roll lost it’s fight much earlier. After the Guns N Roses era came to a close, few rock bands ever managed to reach those heights again. Don’t even bother with the Killers and The Kings of Leon…or The Strokes bitch. I’m talking about real fucking n roll. The kind of rock n roll that made all the bad things bands these days demonize like drinking, sex, destruction, rebellion and a good hearty message of Fuck You to anyone who bothered them, fun!. Elvis shock things up, the Stones defined it, Aerosmith brought it miles higher while AC/DC put the fucking boots on before Guns N Roses perfected it in every single sense of the word.
The world is losing it’s icons. Right now I can’t think of any that have come out since the early nineties. I mean a true icon of rebellion. Pete Doherty, and Amy Winehouse make a mockery of drug addicted musicians which, throughout the history of music, have written some of the most amazing music ever created. The Beatles, Jim Morrison, The Grateful Dead, Hendrix, Keith Richards, Janis Joplin, Kobain etc. Bono, Yorke and Martin take the places of people like Neil Young with his stories, Springsteen and his zest for life and Bowies ever changing persona, image and style only to replace it with gilt tripping, giver of life wannabe humanitarian ideologist façade while they doge taxes and pontificate to fans what they should do, wear, believe in, live and breath. Forget ‘think for yourself’, the message was spelled out in bold impact lettering and strangely enough, a discontented mass fell for it, hook line and sinker.
That’s pretty much where we are in my eyes. I’ve forgotten many of the previous generation’s true greats but there’s only so much you can write in an hour and keep semi-coherent. I’ve also neglected some of the better talents to emerge on the international scene and some of the worse ones. Arcade Fire and MGMT to name a couple. But that’s how I see things, pretty much that black and white. Most of the old styles got confused, disjointed, lost in translation and overwhelmed in image, style and forced restrictions and beliefs and turned them into uninspired shells of their former selves. I’m not saying charity is bad, I’m not saying there’s no credibility in any of the new bands these days and I’m not saying looking after the environment is wrong, animals should be mistreated, people shouldn’t be nice to each other and drugs are good. I believe the exact opposite of each one and a conscious attitude is essential to the basic fabrication of mankind’s cohabitation together and civilized society. What I’m saying is people should learn this from other sources like parents and a proper education rather than one of mankind’s forms of entertainment. Aren’t we allowed to relax, switch totally off and dream sometimes with the horrors of some societies and the worlds problems being shoved in our face at every fucking turn?
Maybe there was one message spelt out by one of the golden age icons that we should listen to is the words of Jim Morrison.
“When the music’s over, turn out the lights, turn out the lights,”
There is one band in the world that has always come close to beating Def Leppard to the top spot in my all time favorites. A band that I consider to be the greatest hard rock band of all time. I first discovered Guns N Roses in 1992, just a couple of months after Def Leppard when an older brother of one of my friends leant me the Use Your Illusion 1I& II albums in boarding school. Knowing that I was a Leppard and Meatloaf fan, I think he wanted someone else to share the mighty Guns with since everyone else had never heard of any rock bands. I remember trying Use Your Illusion I first because I preferred the cover and was instantly blown away by the sher force of the Axl’s voice and the guitars. I’d never heard anything like this and all of a sudden Leppard didn’t hold the holier than though pedestal I’d placed them on. Shortly after I managed to get copies of the alums from a traveller outside Mullingar at a wee market at some roadside restaurant like the covert and Guns were firmly brought into my life.
Aside from Adrenalize, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to an album so much in my life. Use Your Illusion I oozes sleazy Rock N Roll and as I got older, I understood more and more of the ands lyrics an hidden connotations. It was like an album that grew more and more mature with age and that’s the prime reason it never got left on the shelf when new bands came into my life. Despite being as big of a fan as I was, I’d never even heard about Appetite for Destruction or Lies and wouldn’t discover them for another eight or nine years. Even when Appetite did come along, it’s never managed to replace Illusion 1 as my favorites; even now I can listen to that album and enjoy it as much as I ever did.
Before getting into the songs (and honestly, I don’t write these to try and review the greatest songs in my life. If you don’t know them there isn’t much point in you reading these), I should say that to appreciate the Guns, you really need to look at their career rather than just their music. Think of them like The Sex Pistols and you will understand Rock N Roll like the Pistols make you understand the true meaning of punk. Rock n Roll is meant to be an attitude more than the music. It’s that attitude that defines real rock n roll rebellion. It’s not anarchy, it’s lazy. It’s about doing what ever you like and not letting anyone tell you otherwise. Yeah it sounds cliché but that’s what it’s all about and if there is one man in rock who lives up to every single word of that, it’s W. Axl Rose.
Axl has never and will never do what record companies, fans, and mates, family or the press expect, pressure or beg him to do. Yes I’m sure there are all these underground guys who do the same but I’m sorry, Axl is the one with the millions under his belt and he still does what he likes and makes it work at his level. He didn’t give up after the Illusion and release one watered down alum after another for the following twenty years. He also didn’t go out of his way to keep the classic line-up happy and he continued Guns N Roses in his own way with the whole world laughing at him. Even the rock press and diehard fans failed to see the brilliance behind his methods and still today the fans that claimed to stand behind him still bitch log and beg for tours, special edition albums and music videos all the while their forgetting that none of these things will make the bands latest album Chinese Democracy any better. Axl is a musician who’s quite happy to let the music speak for its’ self. If anyone else did it and said that’s what they were doing, the world would cherish them and praise their musical integrity but unfortunately for Axl, they lampoon him.
Well I hope you will read this and look on Axl more favorably. He is not a front man interested in keeping old fans happy by travelling the world selling a decaying shell of a once great line-up, who’s former members have gone on to destroy their legacy’s and tarnished their images as the rocks leading hell raisers (except Izzy). He’s doing what he wants, how he wants to do it and any fan of rock n roll out there who criticizes, laughs or attacks him for this hasn’t got fucking clue what rock n roll is all about. You’d be better of buying your Motorhead t-shirts in Top Shop and singing along with Summer of 69 when it’s one and leave it at that because Rock has enough posers already.
Anyways, Use Your Illusion I eh, great album. What else can I say?
For many years, members of the KISS army have cried out at the unjustified dismissing of KISS when the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame (self-titled) selects entrants for its ‘illustrious’ records. Yes, this group of nobodies who have contributed nothing to the world of rock ‘n’ roll (Actually, I should be a member) get to choose bands it deems worthy of taking a chunk of metal (or plastic or something) home and playing a song for their wage paying attendees.
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