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Posts Tagged “guns n roses”

piracy funds think pieces

Are The Feds Going To Make An Example Of The Guns N' Roses Leaker?

Kevin Cogill, the Antiquiet proprietor who was arrested earlier this week for leaking nine songs from Guns N' Roses' eternally delayed Chinese Democracy, is out on $10,000 bond, and there's a bounty on his head from none other than ex-Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash: "I hope he rots in jail," the curly-haired guitarist told the Los Angeles Times. "It's going to affect the sales of the record, and it's not fair." Whether or not Cogill does "rot" in jail (and pay fines, and possible civil damages) rests on the court's interpretation of the the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, which makes the pre-release dissemination of even one song a felony. The act hasn't been used much; one notable occurrence of its enforcement came when two people who leaked Ryan Adams' Jacksonville City Nights before its street date were subsequently sentenced to two months of house arrest and two years probation. But lawyers that the Times spoke to hinted that Cogill's punishment could be a bit harsher, thanks to the continued bottom-line hit that the biz has been taking. More »

geeking out

FBI Agent Looks For The Truth About Guns N' Roses By Using Command-Line Operations

The Smoking Gun has a copy of an affidavit by the FBI special agent who was charged with tracking down just how those nine tracks from Chinese Democracy made their way to the Internet back in June. I have to say, I ate up this particular legal document even more than I normally would, because I'm the type of person who's always been into finding out more about stuff on the Internet by firing up a Terminal window and going all whois on a domain name or two. (Shoot, you guys. Maybe I could become an FBI agent once this music-blogging thing doesn't work out...) [The Smoking Gun]

the law

Guns N' Roses Leaker Gets Nabbed By The Feds

So, remember those nine songs from Chinese Democracy that leaked back in June? And remember how the proprietor of Antiquiet.com, the blog that streamed those songs until their servers crashed and they got a "friendly" e-mail or twelve from the Guns N' Roses camp, got a visit from the Feds shortly after the leaks sprung? Well, two days after he posted a call for lawyers on the site—"More and more each day, it looks like I may be indicted," he wrote—he was arrested by FBI agents and charged with violating Federal copyright laws. More »

putting the pseudo in pseudo-event

Will The VMAs' "Surprise" Finale Be All That Surprising?

Seat-filling site 1iota.com is looking for Jonas Brothers fans to stuff the audience ranks for the boys' Video Music Awards performance, and as if seeing their favorite Jersey-raised brothers isn't enough of a carrot for these kids, the site hints that people selected to be in the audience will get to see what the site is billing as a "Top-Secret Finale." (Caps theirs.) But which performer could actually shock the Red Bull-and-IM-frazzled children of today into being, well, surprised? Poll after the jump. More »

using our illusions

The Curious Case Of The Disappearing "Shackler's Revenge" Artwork

Last night, Blabbermouth posted an item claiming that it had found new Guns N' Roses-related artwork, and that said art was intended to accompany either the "Shackler's Revenge" digital download or—gasp—Chinese Democracy. But when I clicked through from my RSS feed to the post this morning, I found that it had since been removed. Cached posts scattered around the 'Net revealed that the item quoted "writer Erin Fox" as having found the cover from Microsoft, who I guess would have distributed the cover because "Shackler's Revenge" is going to become commercially available via the forthcoming video game Rock Band 2. (Just in case you're wondering, that explanation makes no sense to me, either. And I have no idea who Erin Fox might be.)

While trawling the Internet for further information on this mysterious bit of art—naturally, I wanted to see if Blabbermouth had removed the post because of pressure from the band's very hands-on management or because it wanted to wipe bits of egg off its face—I found a thread on the GNR forum GNRevolution that not only revealed it as fan-made, it teased a lurker out of the woodwork who went by the name of "azoff." As in Irving Azoff, the band's manager? Well, not quite—but that doesn't mean my curiosity wasn't piqued by his cryptic posts.

More »

Yesterday, former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler pleaded not guilty to a felony drug possession count and a misdemeanor intoxication charge stemming from a July arrest in a California court. The presiding judge ordered that he stay in rehab at the Pasadena Recovery Center—where, not coincidentally, Celebrity Rehab is shot—for at least the next month. [MTV]

videodrone

Linkin Park Apparently Thinks Bret Michaels Was The Singer Of Guns N' Roses


Mope-rockers Linkin Park's show at Alpine Valley on Saturday night was notable because one of the dudes took a break from whining about the world and his place in it to tell the crowd that people shouldn't always take themselves so seriously. The band then went on to don blond wigs (??) and perform what may be one of the worst covers of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" that I've heard in the 21 years since the song was first released. (And I've seen my share of GN'R cover bands, so I feel comfortable making this statement.) That guitar solo, oy! Maybe this melodic ignorance is why they have a DJ? [YouTube]

Is Chinese Democracy going to be a Best Buy exclusive? And is Interscope/Geffen/A&M really banking on that long-delayed album and Dr. Dre's Detox and a new collection from Eminem saving its fourth-quarter bottom line this year? The end of the world may be coming even sooner than 2012, methinks. [Hits]

leak of the day

Guns N' Roses Will Have Their Revenge On Whatever Harmonix Employee Leaked Their New Song

ARTIST: Guns N' Roses
TITLE: "Shackler's Revenge"
WEB DEBUT: Aug. 14, 2008 More »

Velvet Revolver-related factoids that you can slip into your happy-hour chatter. 1. Ex-Spacehog vocalist Royston Langdon will probably not be the band's new lead singer, despite the guys getting along famously. 2. The band is working on new music, and feeling closer than ever now that Weiland is falling into drum risers that don't belong to Matt Sorum. 3. Duff McKagan hasn't heard those Guns N' Roses tracks that leaked in June, claiming ignorance about blogs, BitTorrent sites, or any of those other places on the computers where one can find illicit files. [RS]

help wanted

Velvet Revolver's Remaining Members Find A Nice Young Man To Jam With

What with the heat and the humidity, you probably forgot all about Velvet Revolver's search for a new singer—which means that the time is right to note that Spacehog's Royston Langston is now in the mix for the gig, with Entertainment Weekly reporting that jam sessions between the former Guns N' Roses members and the former husband of Liv Tyler were "successful." (Now there is a rock and roll adjective.) "They all got along great," a tipster told EW. "It was really a refreshing change for the band." And given that Matt Sorum hasn't irritably blogged about Langston's rock and roll attitude, I'd have to think that at the very least, all the guys had fun. But do you think that Duff can do those falsetto backing vocals on "In The Meantime"? Because that would maybe drag me out to a show... if I could get discounted, or at least service-charge-free, tickets. Video of that track after the jump. More »

rumors

"Chinese Democracy" Whispers Finally Get Some New Storylines

Last night I got a tip about a video purporting to be footage of someone who works for Rock Band maker Harmonix talking about Chinese Democracy "off the record" at the E3 conference; during the chat, he made outsized claims like a) the album is not only coming out this year, it's going to be made up of not one, but four (?!) CDs; and b) September's Video Music Awards are going to go the big Axl appearance route again, what with MTV being part of the braintrust behind the game. Whether this is at all true, or merely a disinformation campaign that doubles as a shrewd way for the Harmonix employee to punk the "innocent" interviewer who was clearly not turning off his camera during the Axl-sensitive portion of the interview, is for you to figure out, although I think it's somewhat sweet that YouTube's commenting hordes are calling for the clip to be taken down so the dude can keep his job. Video after the jump. More »

use your illusion

"Chinese Democracy" May Arrive Via Video Game First

One omission from the possibly half-faked Rock Band 2 track list that we published last week: Guns N' Roses' "Shackler's Revenge," which appeared on another leaked track list and which has the same title as a "lost" film that had some sort of contribution by former Guns N' Roses guitarist Buckethead. The New York Times is reporting that "Shackler's" will indeed be on the game come September, and that; more details on the track, via message-board postings pulled together by a GN'R fan blog, after the jump. More »

alternate histories

Ten Artists Who Should Be Very Glad They're Not Axl Rose

The attention the media gives to Guns N' Roses and My Bloody Valentine may give young bands the idea that it'd actually be good for their legacy to record regularly for six years, then hold off for at least another 15 so that fan excitement can build and their myth can blossom. (Hey, if Sting and Joe Strummer had waited that long to record follow-ups to Synchronicity and Combat Rock, maybe people would have cared more about Brand New Day and Rock Art And The X-Ray Style!) So I looked at what would have happened to some of rock's most legendary figures if they, too, had waited 15 years to release new albums once their first six years of putting out records were done—and found that extended absences rarely make later projects look much better. More »

buddyhead invented the remix!

New Guns N' Roses Track Gets Tweaked By Buddyhead


"Hey, Axl! Wake up, man! Been 14 years, 15 years you've been sleeping... get your hair braided, man. Let's do this!" I tuned out on Buddyhead once they ran out of singers worth revealing the phone numbers of and moved on to posting Primal Scream MP3s, so I'm pleasantly surprised by this brilliant remix of Guns N' Roses' dubby "If The World," a.k.a. "New Song No. 3" from The Antiquiet Sessions. "Buddyhead rock right, Axl know! Fifteen years in the fields of blow! Hair so tight, white-boy corn rows! True rock shit, Real rock n' roll!" If the right producer (who doesn't fear litigation) hears this, it could wind up becoming a popular mixtape loop. "Cease and desist, bitches!" [Buddyhead via Velvet Rope]

the law

Axl Rose Believes That The Truth Is Out There

Last week's leak of nine songs purporting to be from Guns N' Roses' eternally delayed Chinese Democracy had a whole mess of repercussions, but perhaps none of them were as unnerving for the proprietor of leak source Antiquiet.com as the visitors his office had yesterday—who happened to be from the FBI. (They even looked like Mulder and Scully! Talk about verisimilitude!) "It was kind of an ambush," Antiquiet proprietor and ex-Universal Music Group employee Skwerl told Rolling Stone. "When I came back from lunch they were waiting in the lobby for me." The three chatted for 15 minutes, then made plans to regroup back at Skwel's place at 7 the next morning. More »

Listening to this 15-minute interview with drummer Matt Sorum makes me think that he would be an interesting guy to sit down for a beer and a (taped) chat with, although I do want to point out that if you actually hunker down with the MP3 of the interview instead of just reading the quoted bits, his talk about the "Guns N' Roses reunion" is pretty much him goofing on the idea, Axl Rose, etc. [musicradar.com]

hi, axl! hi, axl! where's axl?

Sebastian Bach Is Happy To Talk About Axl Rose

Is Sebastian Bach the only person who can say he's bros with Axl, or is he just the only one who goes to the press to describe how tight the two of them are? Rolling Stone called up the reclusive rock star's former competitor and current compatriot in hopes of getting some juicy quotes about the recently leaked Chinese Democracy tracks. As Bach's Angel Down, despite some guests shrieks from Axl, has failed to make the youth go wild, Bach didn't hesitate to share some admittedly hilarious anecdotes, as well as cast doubt on any hopes that Axl would allow his life to be spotlight alongside those of Scott Baio and Flavor Flav on Celebreality. ("Sebastian, you don't understand. I will pay VH1 $2 million to leave me the fuck alone!") More »