Karl Klockars

I am having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that we now live in a world where Chinese Democracy has been released to the listening public.  This must be what voting feels like in a dictatorship – you don’t know what it counts for and you don’t really know why you’re doing it, but you’re going to be part of it, just because you can.

One of the only things I’ve ever spent money on in the Apple Itunes store was a digital copy of the Use Your Illusion II record.  Then I realized that I didn’t have a copy of my favorite track, Coma, so I dropped a buck on that.  Axl already has about eleven of my hard earned dollars this decade.

So of course I spent about 77 minutes sitting in front of a Myspace page listening to the new tracks stream out in front of me – for free – through my two crappy little Mac laptop speakers.  And after processing the whole experience,I really just gotta say, Axl:

If you wanted to be the singer for a prog-rock band like Dream Theater, then why didn’t you just freaking say so.

My brother tattled on me for having this. Then he went back to listening to Kriss Kross. Jerk.

Just for a little backstory, I’ve always been a Guns N’ Roses fan.  I got in more trouble for owning a cassette tape of Use Your Illusion I than for any other record I ever owned, including my collection of Slayer records.  (Lesson: barely threatening music is scarier when your kids are younger.  And when your folks think you should only be listening to hymns and Sesame Street – even in 8th grade – anything with tattoos and cuss words is the devil.)

I was right in the window of discovering rock n’ roll when Appetite for Destruction (still my vote for greatest rock n’ roll record of all times) was released.  Or somewhere around there – memory is fuzzy and it always took a couple extra years for popular culture to squeeze into the world of Catholic School kids.  And from there I was hooked, from the Paradise City video all the way through the epic conclusion of the Trilogy of Epic Guns Videos, “Estranged,” the release of which was hosted by John Sencio (I don’t know why I remember this).  “Estranged” was such a big deal to MTV in 1994 that after they played the full ten-minute video…they played it again.  No shit.

So believe me when I say I know from whence I speak about Guns N’ Roses.  And I’m not going to review the record – that’s not what I do, and the record is beyond reviewing anyways.  It being good or bad isn’t going to affect what it sells.  You’re going to buy it or you’re not.  What’s on the record itself doesn’t matter any more, despite the 17-year absence.  You’re going to support new “Guns N’ Roses” music with your money or not.  That’s it.  Doesn’t matter what it sounds like.  So, everyone else that wants to review it, fine.  In the end, it doesn’t matter one bit.

"What's new, dolphins? Nothing? Cool, me either."

What this record demonstrates is an excellent example of what the functionally insane can accomplish with a nearly endless amount of time and money.  I was really hoping this record will never come out and Axl would go all Howard Hughes style crazy and never venture out of his Malibu estate except to speak with the dolphins.  Alas, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

I wanted this record to be the rock n’ roll City of Gold, Holy Grail or Fountain of Youth – always quested for, never achieved.  It was way more fun to hear things leaked out over YouTube or bootlegged from one of the handful of barely-successful live shows you put on in the last few years.

So, basically, I just want to know, Axl:  Why the wait?  Was it to bury any sort of hint that the original Guns was on the record anywhere?  Was it to put a few more 32nd-notes into one of those Buckethead solos?  Was it to wash a few more keyboards, marimbas, digeridoos and MLK samples over the whole record just to see what would happen?

Listen, Axl:  I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dream Theater. They do a lot of the same things that you do on this record.  It’s kinda surprising to hear you sounding a lot like them, because they were doing all of this back in ’91 right when you were pulling on your bike shorts and umpire’s vest for your final stadium shows.  I know you were more into things like Nine Inch Nails and techno around there – just listen to “My World” at the end of Use Your Illusion II, if you can – but maybe you listened to records like Images and Words or Awake and took a few cues…a dozen years too late.

"I'm also Batman."

Also:  Have you been teaching Billy Corgan how to operate in the style of W. Axl Rose?  Ditching almost all the original band members, berating the audience, breaking up the band and then “getting it back together” again when you feel like it?  And let’s not fail to mention the absolute iron-fisted control in the recording studio, increasingly insane stage costumes, and birthplace near Chicago?

Have Billy Corgan and Axl Rose ever been seen in the same room together?  That shaved head look could just be a bald cap to cover up your goofy-looking braids.  Whatever they were putting in the water in Lafayette, Indiana back in the 70s must have made its way to the ‘burbs in the 80s or so, because you’ve both got the same brand of crazy.