EOnline.com

LEGAL JUNGLE: Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose , who controls the name of the band, considering legal action against Geffen Records to block the March 23 release of a Greatest Hits collection, featuring 14 of G N' R's best-known tracks.

PARADISE CITY: Meanwhile, Axl and his newly revamped Guns N' Roses are scheduled to play the Rock in Rio-Lisbon festival on May 30, their first live gig since their disastrous 2002 comeback tour which was scrapped with 13 dates remaining.

EOnline.com

THORN IN HIS SIDE: A judge denying Axl Rose 's request for a restraining order against Geffen Records Monday and allowing the company to go forward with its plans to release a Guns N' Roses greatest hits album next week.

Oye, I didn't know Slash and Duff McKagan were in on the lawsuit too. I know Axl is trying to get away from his old personality (even though insists in calling his new band G&R), but why would Slash and Duff object?? I'm assuming they would love the royalties...



people.com

TOSSED: A federal judge in Los Angeles has rejected a bid by Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose, 40, and two of the metal band's former members, Slash and Duff McKagan, to block Geffen Records from releasing a greatest hits compilation next week. Rose sued the record label, a unit of Universal Music Group, saying he never gave his permission to release the record or have its hits re-mixed for the new album.

Guns N' Roses Cancel Show
EOnline.com
by Sarah Hall
Mar 30, 2004, 11:50 PM PT

Sometimes it takes more than just a little patience to be a Guns N' Roses fan.

According to a press release issued by frontman Axl Rose, Guns N' Roses has pulled out of their May 30 headlining performance at the Rock in Rio festival in Lisbon.

Apparently, the blame for the cancellation rests with guitarist Buckethead, who departed the band without warning, according to Rose, the group's sole original member.

"The band has been put in an untenable position by guitarist Buckethead and his untimely departure," Rose said in a press release. "During his tenure with the band Buckethead has been inconsistent and erratic in both his behavior and commitment--despite being under contract--creating uncertainty and confusion and making it virtually impossible to move forward with recording, rehearsals and live plans with confidence."

The frustrated Rose went on to bash Buckethead at length in the wordy release, which earned the distinction of Worst Press Release of the Week from the blog Gawker.com.

Buckethead apparently made his solo aspirations a priority, which proved to be a thorn in Rose's side. The GNR frontman complained that Buckethead had used his position in the band and the anticipation of the long-awaited album Chinese Democracy to further his own career

"It appears his plans were to secure a recording contract with Sanctuary Records which I encouraged my management to make available to him, quit GNR and to use his involvement in the upcoming Guns release to immediately promote his individual efforts," Rose said.

"There is not a member of this camp that is not hurt, upset and ultimately disappointed. We as a whole definitely feel that we afforded Bucket every accommodation perhaps so much so that it may be that we, or more precisely, I may have done Guns a disservice and unintentionally allowed Guns to be put in this position."

Buckethead, who's never seen in public unmasked or without a KFC bucket over his head, will launch a solo tour Wednesday in Milwaukee, opening for the jam band Particle.

The cancellation in Lisbon is just another black mark on GNR's comeback struggles.

The Rock in Rio appearance was to be the band's first performance since their ill-fated 2002 comeback tour, which was canceled with 13 performances remaining.

Rose attempted to put a positive spin on the turn of events.

"In the meantime rather than dwelling on the negative, Guns will be moving forward, and surprisingly (without giving away any details) this unfortunate set of circumstances may have given us the opportunity to take our recording that one extra step further," Rose said in his release, adding that the band hoped to announce a release date for Chinese Democracy within a few months.

The band has not released any new material within the last decade.

However, Geffen Records issued GNR's Greatest Hits this week, despite Rose's attempt to have the record blocked through the courts.

EOnline.com

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Guns N' Roses losing a bid to suppress an album of early material when the band was known as Hollywood Rose. The 15-track album, The Roots of Guns N' Roses, includes five tracks made in 1984 by Axl Rose and future Guns guitarist Izzy Stradlin.

EOnline.com

GUNS N' LAWSUIT: A conference set in a $1 million lawsuit filed by Duff McKagan and Slash against their former Guns N' Roses bandmate Axl Rose , who they claim has no controlling interest in the band's songs and killed deals that would have put their music in several movies.

Well, with all those lawsuits at each other I'm guessing no reunion shows anytime soon?

Slash (center), wife Perla and guest at the VH1 Big in '04 in Los Angeles, California

EOnline.com

GUNS N' LAWSUIT: A hearing set in Slash and Duff McKagan's $1 million lawsuit against their former Guns N' Roses bandmate Axl Rose , who they claim has no controlling interest in their songs and killed deals that would have put their music in half a dozen movies.

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/e­ntertainment/66952004.htm


Guns N Roses Bizarre Tour With Axl Rose
June 28, 2005, 7:06:58


CORNELL REMEMBERS 'COMIC BOOK' TOUR WITH AXL ROSE


Rocker CHRIS CORNELL felt he was living out a comic book story when he
toured with GUNS N' ROSES in 1992 because AXL ROSE was so bizarre.


The AUDIOSLAVE star was the frontman for cult rockers SOUNDGARDEN when they
joined Guns N' Roses for a crazy US tour, and his only memories of the trek
are of Rose's odd backstage rules and his only meeting with the eccentric
singer.


He tells Blender magazine, "You were not allowed to be in a hallway or
anywhere Axl might see you when he was walking between the dressing rooms
and the stage.


"So, one day I see a security guard walking him down this long corridor
where there's no one except for me, and it's like they want me to see him.


"He's wearing his Axl Rose tennis shoes that say 'Axl Rose' on them and
these teeny-tiny, painted-on red shorts, a backwards baseball cap and a fur
coat that goes to the floor.


"He just walks by and goes, 'Hey, bro!' And that was it. At that point, it's
one of those moments where you think about your life as a comic book."


Cornell also reveals that teleprompters had to be set up at the end of
catwalks connected to the stage, so that Rose could stay on top of lyrics.


He adds, "I thought (that) was a little weird because they only had two
albums."

Talk about a play on names:

Slash's new group: Velvet Revolver

Duff, Slash Gunning for Axl
EOnline.com
by Charlie Amter
Aug 25, 2005, 7:05 AM PT

The bad blood among the ex-members of Guns N' Roses has boiled over into a federal case.

Duff McKagan and Slash filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Aug. 17 against Guns ringleader Axl Rose, accusing their former frontman of trying to cheat them out of royalties from the song catalog of the iconic band.

Duff and Slash, now part of Velvet Revolver, say they are still partners with Rose when it comes to the old Guns tunes like "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "Welcome to the Jungle." They contend that Rose, without their consent, signed a multimillion-dollar publishing deal with U.K.-based Sanctuary Group earlier this year that included the lucrative Guns N' Roses back catalog.

Because of Rose's "arrogance and ego," per the suit, he has failed to "acknowledge the contributions of his former bandmates in [creating] some of rock's greatest hits."

"Rose's actions were malicious, fraudulent and oppressive, and undertaken in conscious disregard of [Slash and Duff's] property rights." They say that a $92,000 royalty check covering the first quarter of 2005 went directly to Rose "and his accomplices," instead of being split three ways. Guns N' Roses' catalog is worth about $500,000 per year, according to the suit.

The former Gunners are accusing Rose of fraud, copyright infringement and breach of fiduciary duty.

Deke Arlon, chairman of Sanctuary's publishing division, told E! Online he couldn't discuss the dustup because "the matter is subject to legal hearings." But Rose's lawyer, Howard Weitzman, says the suit is the result of a misunderstanding. Weitzman tells the Los Angeles Times that Rose's deal only covered his portion of the royalties, and the $92,000 check cited in the lawsuit was an overpayment due to a clerical error.

The original members of the Los Angeles band drifted apart in the mid-1990s--leaving the band's legacy in dispute. Rose was eventually awarded rights to the Guns N' Roses moniker and continues to play (or not play, as is more often the case) under the GNR banner. But Duff and McKagan sued Rose in April 2004 to determine control of the back catalog.

That breach-of-contract lawsuit, which is still pending, specifically alleges Rose unilaterally blocked the others from licensing Guns' music for movie soundtracks, effectively shutting off potential revenue streams to Slash and Duff. The duo claimed Rose "whimsically refuses to license Guns N' Roses Music" even though he, they allege, dropped out of the partnership in 1995.

Even with the feuding, the band's studio albums have all gone multiplatinum, and Guns' songs are still among the most requested in the publishing biz. The band's tunes recently turned up--along with Rose's vocal acting talents--in 2004's biggest videogame release, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

What hasn't turned up is Rose's forever-in-the-works album, Chinese Democracy, with his revamped version of Guns N' Roses.

Earlier this year, the New York Times ran a lengthy feature examining how the seemingly mythical Chinese Democracy has failed to surface, despite being finessed in various studios for the better part of the last decade. The article concluded that the delay was due in part to Rose's fabled eccentric and reclusive nature.

In response to the March article, Sanctuary Group CEO Merck Mercuriadis fired off a vitriolic letter to the Times, saying Rose will "have the last laugh" and that the singer is simply a "soft target for the sort of rubbish you have chosen to print."

Last we heard, Sanctuary was aiming for a late November release date for Democracy, but that was before the label's financial problems became public. The company is said to be heavily burdened by debt and is struggling to survive.

Despite their open feuding, Duff, Slash and Rose did manage to reunite last year to sue Universal to block the release of a Guns N' Roses Greatest Hits album. The band lost, and the album wound up debuting at number three on the Billboard 200 and ultimately sold over two million copies.

Im ashamed to admit I was in love w/ Axl around age 15.........I had posters of him in my locker around 1988 or so........

October 27, 2005


AXL ROSE NAMED 'COOLEST OLD PERSON'


Never mind the fact that Axl Rose hasn't been seen in years — not
since his reconfigured Guns N' Roses pulled out of their 2002 tour
with eight stops to go. Forget that Guns N' Roses haven't released
fresh material in more than six years (the track "Oh My God" appeared
on the "End of Days" soundtrack in 1999). None of that matters to the
teenage readers of Ellegirl magazine.


To them, even though Axl hasn't been a blip on pop culture's
proverbial radar for years, he's still rad.


According to the results of the magazine's latest poll, which can be
found in the new "Cool" issue, Rose, at the ripe age of 43, is one of
the world's coolest old people. He ranked second in the survey (that's
10,000 girls worldwide, with about 4,000 of them U.S. citizens), right
behind top vote-getter "grandparents." Whose grandparents? Everyone's
grandparents, it seems.


Called "The Second Annual International Cool Survey," the poll covers
all the basics — coolest couple, coolest guy celeb, coolest band, and
coolest person to be stuck in an elevator with (that person being Clay
Aiken), among other categories.


GN'R's reclusive frontman — who has been working on his long-overdue
Chinese Democracy album for about a decade now — wasn't the only
recognizable name that made the cut. Clint Eastwood, who's 75, was
third in the voting, followed by rocker Elvis Costello (51), Julie
Andrews (70), designer Karl Lagerfeld (67), Madonna (47), Rolling
Stones frontman Mick Jagger (62) and designer Vivienne Westwood (64).


— Chris Harris

Me too

Coolest old person at 43?

EEEWK.

I must be considered an immortal at my age.

Well, to be honest when you see pics of him he sure looks a hell of a lot older then 42, he did not age well!

EOnline.com

ABOUT TIME: Axl Rose telling Rolling Stone that Guns N' Roses' long-gestating album, Chinese Democracy, will be finished and released this year.

He was in my locker...his poster that is...back around 1988 or so...whenever they first came out..... I dressed like him for rocker day or some crap at high school too. Totally had that bandana around my head. I love when he does that side to side snake dance. I still have that CD and think its great. Appetite for Destruction. I loved Axel back in the day but he went and fucd himself all up w/ some horrid plastic surgery.

Me too.


Axel today:

MTV a few years ago

Back in the day

Another back in the day shot

Guns N' Roses: is the wait for the new album over?
belfasttelegraph.co.uk


Guns N' Roses fans: your 13-year wait for a new album is over. Or is it? The US rockers are upholding the finest tradition of the 'creative hiatus'. Fiona Sturges reports
24 January 2006
There is perhaps no greater mark of artistic genius than a mind-bogglingly lengthy gestation period for a new work. It signifies a mind weighed down by its own brilliance. It says that inspiration cannot be bidden; you have to wait for it to strike. If it takes years, so be it; such is the price of great art.

Fans of Guns N' Roses, the unfeasibly successful heavy-metal band of the late Eighties and early Nineties, have been tortured by the endless delay on Chinese Democracy, their third "proper" album, 13 years in the making. After running up a reported $10m (£5.6m) in studio bills, employing eight producers and hiring and firing at least 20 musicians, the singer Axl Rose still hasn't come up with the goods.

But, if recent reports are reliable, the wait may be over. Rose told Rolling Stone: "People will hear music this year... It's a very complex record. I'm trying to do something different. Some people are going to say, 'It doesn't sound like Guns N' Roses.' But you'll like at least a few songs on there."

This isn't the first time the album has supposedly been near completion. In July 2004, Tommy Stinson, the Gunners bassist, said the album was "almost done". At the time, Rose put the delay down to "legal and other issues" including "ego management" and "the psychological mind-game" of keeping a large band "simmering but pulling in the same direction". A few months later, he advised fans on a website that they'd be better off waiting for the resurrection of Christ.

Maybe Rose just doesn't know when to admit defeat. In the late Eighties, Guns N' Roses were just about the biggest band on the planet, but then the guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin and bass player Duff McKagan walked out. Ever since, Rose has had a shifting cast of band members and embarked on some catastrophic tours, claiming all the while to be working on a masterpiece.

Pop is littered with examples of songwriters either reluctant to get on with the job in hand, or incapable of it. Following his copious output in the 1960s and 1970s, Scott Walker dropped off the musical radar until 1995, when he made the wilfully inscrutable Tilt. Asked what he'd been doing with his time, he said he'd "sat in pubs watching guys throw darts".

Kevin Shields' reaction to the success of My Bloody Valentine's 1991 album Loveless was to build a 16ft barbed-wire fence around his house and swear never to darken the music industry's doorstep again.

Kate Bush's tardiness in following up 1993's The Red Shoes is music-industry legend. In a pop landscape increasingly starved of originality, her silence grew deafening - as did the demand for a comeback. Last November's Aerial was a spectacular 12 years in the making. In spite of its laboured inception, it was a critical and commercial triumph and sealed Bush's status as a bona fide legend.

Then, of course, there is Brian Wilson. The creative force behind The Beach Boys took 37 years to complete Smile, his answer to The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper. His fragile mental state during recording sessions led to him to having a sandpit installed in his living room so he could feel the beach beneath his feet. After trying - and mercifully failing - to burn the master tapes, Wilson threw in the towel and his "teenage symphony to God" ended up locked away in a vault.

After that, he didn't go near a recording studio for 20 years. It wasn't until last year that the partially rehabilitated Wilson dusted down the old Smile tapes with the help of the original producer Van Dyke Parks and released the album, to huge acclaim.

These delays conjure up pictures of an artist in torment, searching for their muse. But in the notoriously indisciplined world of rock, this is not always the case. Wilson's 20-year sabbatical might look like a punishing period of artistic purgatory until you learn that he spent much of that time in bed, only getting up to take delivery of consignments of cocaine and fast food. Unhinged he may have been, but these are hardly the actions of a man looking to get back to work.

One more persistent rumour about Kate Bush is that, rather than summoning her muse, she spent the last decade baking cakes. Two years ago, on visiting the singer at her home to see what she'd been working on, her label bosses were apparently confronted with a teatime spread that would have put Mrs Beeton to shame.

These cases cannot be called writer's block, but there have been plenty of artists claiming to have suffered from this in the hope that it will afford them the mythical status of tortured genius. In fact, "writer's block" can hide a multitude of sins. For a slacker singer-songwriter living off the spoils of the last multimillion-seller, there can be no better excuse to avoid going back to work. The rumour of creative constipation can be the perfect smokescreen for the artist whose greatest work is behind them, and for whom the prospect of a worthy successor seems impossible. In such instances, one imagines, it's less a case of writer's block than stone-cold fear.

The Stereo MCs, creators of the Zeitgeist-surfing, award-winning 1992 album Connected, took nine years to get back in the studio - but the resulting LP, Deep Down and Dirty, bombed. The Scots siblings The Proclaimers took seven years to follow up their Hit The Highway album, citing the death of their father and writer's block as the reasons.

And who could blame The Stone Roses and Elastica for clamming up when it came to their respective second albums? The Roses' sophomore effort Second Coming, released five years after their 1989 debut, failed to live up to the title's promise, while Elastica's The Menace, released after a six-year hiatus, was dead on arrival.

For a songwriter locked in artistic paralysis, a suitable theme can often be staring them in the face. Pete Townshend managed to haul The Who out of a creative quagmire with the lyrics: "When you take up a pencil and sharpen it up/ When you're kicking the fence and nothing will budge" in "Guitar and Pen". The Fall's Mark E Smith pulled off the same trick with "How I Wrote Elastic Man" - "I'm living a fake/ People say, 'You are entitled to and great'/ But I haven't wrote for 90 days." Last year, Nick Cave revealed the same affliction in "There She Goes My Beautiful World", complaining: "Me, I'm lying here, with nothing in my ears/ Me, I'm lying here for what seems like years/ I'm just lying on my bed with nothing in my head."

Of course, there's a difference between writer's block and simply being a perfectionist. But there is something compelling about a once-brilliant songwriter in creative exile. The artist Marcel Duchamp gave up painting at the age of 36 and devoted the rest of his life to playing chess. As for Axl Rose, maybe he'd be better off binning the album. That way, he can at least be sure the legend will live on.

'Chinese Democracy' will be released later this year. Allegedly

EOnline.com

APPETITE FOR G N' R: Three studio-quality tracks from Guns N' Roses' long-delayed Chinese Democracy album leaked to the Internet. The news comes a few weeks after singer Axl Rose turned up at a Korn tour party in Los Angeles and told Rollingstone.com that "people will hear music this year."


Anyone know where to find it yet?!?!

Forget Lies--G N' R Leaks!
EOnline.com
by Josh Grossberg
Feb 22, 2006, 10:45 AM PT



For Guns N' Roses fans still wondering when frontman Axl Rose will ever release the legendary rockers' forever-in-the-works Chinese Democracy album, your patience is finally paying off.

Three studio-quality tracks found their way onto the Internet this week, perhaps not so coincidentally just days after a reclusive Rose, 44, made a rare appearance Friday at a tour kick-off party hosted by Korn in Los Angeles and told RollingStone.com that "people will hear music this year."

The leaked tunes have generated big buzz since various Websites began posting them and prompted some radio stations, such as Boston's WAAF, to put them into heavy rotation until cease-and-desist orders arrived from Rose's lawyers.

Early response has so far generally been positive with fans describing the song "There Was a Time" (aka T.W.A.T.) as recalling such Use Your Illusion-era power ballads as "Estranged" while the other two, "I.R.S." and "Better," stick to the hard rock we're used to hearing from the Gunners with some modern emo and techno-infused touches such as loop tracks laid over Buckethead's intricate guitar work and Axl's trademark squeals.

On his morning show on Sirius Satellite Radio, even shock jock Howard Stern got in on the act, critiquing the opening to "I.R.S." after jokingly asking how Rose went "from so cool to being a douche."

"It seems like they are trying to put his voice all the way in the back in the mix," Stern said, noting that while the MP3 was pretty good the mix needed work.

Rose's manager, Merck Mercuriadis, could not be reached for comment but initial reports indicating he had ordered the websites to take down the tracks appear to be true as many of the links have since been removed.

However, the unexpected leaks are fueling speculation that after nine years spent working on Chinese Democracy, the flame-haired singer is finally close to putting the wraps on the magnum opus and has an appetite for touring again with his revamped Guns N' Roses lineup (original members Slash and Duff McKagan are suing Rose, claiming he cheated them out of royalties from the iconic group's song catalog)

2002's ill-fated Chinese Democracy trek, which was touted as the Gunners' comeback tour, was scrapped largely due to Rose's shenanigans, including his penchant for swaggering onstage hours late, the occasional riot, and sluggish ticket sales mainly due to the fact that they had no album to promote.

As if on cue, news broke Monday that G N' R has booked several performances across Europe in May and June, including a gig at Dublin's Arena on June 9 with fellow rockers Mötley Crüe as the opening act, plus appearances at the U.K.'s Download Festival, Austria's NovaRock Festival, with headliners Metallica and the Rock in Rio festival in Lisbon, Portugal.

While Rose has remained mum on the leaks, Lisa Reed, the wife of longtime Gunner keyboardist Dizzy Read, posted a message on her hubby's website saying "all signs point to [the release of Chinese Democracy] getting closer and closer" and pleaded with fans not to leak any more tracks.

"It's like shaking all your Christmas presents on the 23rd of December and figuring out what they are," she wrote. "No surprise and you ruined the fun for the giver. I just as much as anyone want this record to com out, but BE PATIENT!"

Guns N' Roses' last official studio set was 1993's underwhelming collection of covers, The Spaghetti Incident.

Axl's Chinese Democracy album is supposed to be
coming out soon. Listen to leaked tracks:

http://astrasky.com/songs/GNR-IRS(Demo).mp3

http://astrasky.com/songs/GNR-BLUES.mp3

http://astrasky.com/songs/GNR-TWAT.mp3

EOnline.com

COMING UP ROSES: Axl Rose responding to a lawsuit filed by former bandmates Slash and Duff McKagan with a counterclaim of his own, asking a federal judge to confirm his "ownership of his own creative works."

Page SIx
ROSE CONKED BY VELVET FIST

WE told you Saturday that Axl Rose fled the Stereo nightclub in a huff after a drunken fan inadvertently spat in his eye and irritated his contact lenses. Now the ex-Guns 'N Roses frontman has found himself in a spat of a different kind with Velvet Revolver frontman Scott Weiland. Weiland attacked Rose on his group's Web site after Rose dissed him and Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash, who is battling Rose in court over G 'N R's legacy. Weiland writes, "I'll resist the urge to stoop to your level. Oh, s-t, here it comes, you fat, Botox-faced, wig-wearin' [bleep]! O.K. I feel better now." Weiland also accuses Rose of having an "unoriginal, uncreative little mind" and calls him a "frightened little man." Meanwhile, the alarming Axl-takes-Manhattan sightings continue to pile up.

EOnline.com

APPETITE FOR NEW MATERIAL: Axl Rose making a surprise radio appearance Monday and announcing that Guns N' Roses' long-awaited album, Chinese Democracy, will finally be hitting shelves this year. Apparently, all you need is just a lot of patience.

Didn't I read Axl is the ONLY original band member left? Does anyone care about this band anymore??

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's the only original. I loved their old stuff, kinda waiting to hear some of the new stuff on the radio before deciding....

EWpopwatch
Apparently, Axl Rose has been attacked. Don't worry, he's OK. It was only Tommy Hilfiger.

The designer took two swings at Rose at Rosario Dawson's birthday party, where the current incarnation of Guns N' Roses was playing a special, all-acoustic set. Supposedly, Hilfiger was dragged away by his own security detail.

I myself react this way every time I hear "November Rain," so I can understand Tommy's situation. (There's no official word on why Hilfiger attacked Rose.)

I repeat: Axl is OK. Chinese Democracy is on schedule.

Rosario Dawson shows her appreciation for Axl Rose, who performed at the actress's 27th-birthday party Thursday at New York City club Plumm. But the lovefest didn't last: Later, the Guns N' Roses singer (who's reunited with members of the original band) reportedly got into an altercation with designer Tommy Hilfiger.


Oh Axl, what happened to your looks?!?!?!?!

I find this story completely bizarre... Don't know anything about Tommy Hilfiger (is he an asshole?) but know Axl gets in scraps with anybody and everybody. Still this is just plain odd IMO....

Tommy Hilfiger is a geeky Dad that I have never heard say a curse word. Poor guy.

Really?! This whole thing is too weird. Apparently Rosario Dawson's mom also got into a scuffle. Gads, what a party! Must've invited everyone to the hoedown by blasting a megaphone on top of a monster truck driving through a trailer park.

And P.S. R.I.P. Axl's original face...

My bedroom walls use to be plastered with him.

Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses) performs in Madrid (05/25/2006)



Hollywood's Best

Eeeeewww! IMO, he has not aged well AT ALL.

He looks TERRIBLE!!

*sniff, reaches for hanky*

Holy Moly!

Welcome To The Bungle

When Guns 'n' Roses played Download recently, the set was dogged by fans
hurling bottles of piss at the band. Axl Rose stormed off stage until it was
cleared up. Sadly, the mops they used must have seen better days as puddles
streaked the stage. When Axl returned, he kept slipping and ending up on his
arse.

Going head-over-arse was clearly the theme of the day for the ginger rock
screecher. Backstage before the gig, he spotted some space hoppers and
decided - because he's an uncontrollable and rebellious sort of guy - to have
a gone on one. Within three bounces, he went flying and ended up sprawled on
the deck.

In case anyone was wondering why the band's set was peppered with breaks while
they left the stage for undisclosed reasons - this wasn't for the purpose of
topping up their drug intake. Rather, it was to enable the band to punch the
fuck out of one another in comparative privacy, rather than doing so on stage
(something which has taken superhuman restraint on behalf of all parties to
avoid).

Axl Falls Ill, Rocks On, Passes Out
EOnline.com
by Natalie Finn
Aug 1, 2006, 6:20 PM PT



There was no cold November rain last weekend, but Axl Rose was under the weather anyway.

After being diagnosed Sunday morning with low blood pressure and low blood sugar, the Guns N' Roses frontman ignored a doctor's order to take it easy and took the stage at London's Wembley Arena that night for the final show of the band's 32-date European tour.

Actually, Rose, who has a long history of bailing on gigs, responded with, "F--k that, I have a show to do and I am not missing it."

And he almost made it all the way through. Rose, 44, collapsed toward the end of the group's two-hour set, after which former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach--who had jammed with the guys earlier in the evening on "My Michelle"--took over lead vocals on the last songs of the night, "Night Train" and "Paradise City."

The revamped GNR had performed at Wembley Arena on Saturday and also performed a surprise gig at the more intimate Cuckoo Club from 4 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. Sunday. The audience at the smaller show was made up of people who had been rocking out earlier in the day at Wembley. While onstage Rose announced the names of the lucky few who got to attend the Cuckoo concert.

Despite the inauspicious ending--and a few other odd occurrences here and there--Rose seemed satisfied with GNR's experience disseminating Chinese Democracy in Europe.

"I approached this last show with equal parts determination, obligation, responsibility and insanity. It was an amazing night. We have had an amazing tour and it has been fantastic for the band and I to experience this," he said in a statement. "I want to thank everyone in Europe and the U.K. for inspiring us and for giving us the opportunity to play for them. We are now looking forward to the U.S. in September."

So far, GNR is expected to headline the Inland Invasion 2006 concert in Southern California for L.A.'s KROQ-FM on Sept. 23. Other U.S. dates are still in the works.

Perhaps the fear of low blood sugar was what prompted Rose to allegedly take a bite out of a security guard's leg in Stockholm the day after GNR played to a sold-out crowd in June. The singer spent the better part of a day in jail before paying a $5,500 fine and $1,360 in damages to the guard.

Last month Rose prompted the launch of quite a few projectiles after he kept a Newcastle, England, audience waiting for an hour and 15 minutes in the summer heat, according to Britain's Daily Mirror, so that he could polish off a roast lamb dinner.

"Only a roast dinner would do," Colin Revel, manager of Newcastle's Metro Radio Arena, told the tabloid.

Reports that the band was driven off the stage by boos and flying bottles were later clarified by GNR.

"Getting hit wasn't a big deal," Rose said in a statement. "We stopped the song and gave a warning. We came back and started the song over and completed it. We then said goodnight. The house lights went down and I got hit a second time, in the mouth, by a solid object thrown by someone in the audience. After having warned the crowd that we would leave, and having played more than two hours, we left the stage and called it a night with the full support of everyone in the band, our guests and management."

Hey, a guy's gotta eat. Axl should know.

I have 1% respect for Axl since I read in the papers that he let MISS Tommy Hilfiger beat him up.

Inland Blazes in the Fervor of Guns N' Roses
Posted Sep 25th 2006 7:00PM by TMZ Staff
Filed under: Music

As each band came, played, and exited the stage throughout the day of the KROQ Inland Invasion this past Saturday, the crowd began to fill the pavilion. It was as if nervous anticipation of the show's headliner dampened the crowd's reaction to fan favorites like MUSE, 30 Seconds To Mars, Rise Against, and Alice in Chains.

As 14 years of waiting for the return of Guns N' Roses was about to climax, the fans that ventured to the small California town of Devore started to rage. Fires burned upon the ridge and bottles were strewn about in true Redding Fest fashion. The clichés started with Axl arriving almost an hour after his scheduled set time. Just as the crowd began to get restless and security rushed in, the lights from the stage ignited the sky and the crowd was asked the question "Do you know where the f**k you are?", and the first chords of 'Welcome to Jungle' seemed to make the world better again.

The GN'R guys played at hit-filled set -- exactly what the crowd was hoping for. It was, however, announced today that they will be postponing US tour dates until later this year. Is the Axl of old starting to rear his ugly head? No, just getting ready to do this tour thing the right way.

TMZ

AXL ROSE ACTS LIKE HOWARD HUGHES
Page Six

February 12, 2008 -- AXL Rose has become a "virtual recluse" in his Malibu mansion for the past 15 years, according to a new tell-all on the former Guns N' Roses rocker. "These days he is regarded by some as almost a Howard Hughes figure, the bearded, sun-baked, wild-eyed survivor," Mick Wall reveals in "W.A.R. - The Unauthorized Biography of William Axl Rose." His long-awaited comeback album, "Chinese Democracy," which has been postponed several times over the past 15 years, is in limbo and may never be released. Wall writes that Rose's bandmate, Slash, is indifferent about his one-time pal - "Everybody keeps going on about reunion, but the truth is, [Axl] doesn't want to see me any more than I want to see him," Slash tells the author.

You can just read Slash's autobiography to find out what a nut job Axl is. He basically tortured his bandmates with his silliness. And "Chinese Democracy" will never come out.

DOCTOR'S ORDERS
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March 26, 2008 -- TIRED of a world in which Americans idolize wannabe singers, and where musicals about high school students pass as rock 'n' roll, Dr Pepper is begging Axl Rose to finally release this year his 17-years-in-the-making album, "Chinese Democracy." The soft drink company's incentive to Axl, the frontman of Guns N' Roses? If he ships the album in 2008, everyone in America - except estranged guitarists Slash and Buckethead - will receive a free can of Dr Pepper. "It took a little patience for us to perfect Dr Pepper's special mix of 23 ingredients, so we completely understand and empathize with Axl's question for the perfect album," said a company spokesperson. Dr Pepper is asking fans to lobby Axl to drop the album already