Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Tommy Stinson, rock-and-roll survivor, is talking guardedly about his primary employer, the once-legendary hard-rock band Guns N' Roses.

For much of the last six years, singer and headline magnet Axl Rose, Stinson, and a large crew of musicians on retainer have hunkered down in the studio, building the ultimate rock beast under a cloak of extreme secrecy. The sessions are long and uncommonly collaborative, Stinson says, and after many false starts may finally yield an album this year.

"Axl's idea is to take eight guys and make them write a song together," Stinson says. "He'll like an idea of mine, say, and then want to see what the others put on it... . He wants it so that everyone owns the song."

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He says he doesn't care that conditions will be more spartan than on the last Guns tour, which ended abruptly when Rose failed to show at a December 2002 gig at what was then the First Union Center, causing a near riot.

Because of ongoing litigation, Stinson can't say much about that evening. "All I can say is that Axl had the flu, and that show could easily have been postponed." But he adds that he and the others have no illusions about what they face in bringing Guns N' Roses back to respectability.

"You can't think about the enormousness of Guns being accepted again in a global way... . If I've learned anything from rock-and-roll, it's that you can't worry about what people are going to think."




Full article (http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/9335992.htm?1c)



/jarmo

Club / theatre gigs, anyone? Hell, I'm starting to think they might actually tour sometime in Dec/Jan.

Axl had the flu?

Hm, first we've heard that from a member of GnR

Tommy is the only one who is talkin to us about GNR!  :beer: For that!
Dizzy also make some comments but it seems like he wont say that much

Stinson says: The sessions are long and uncommonly collaborative, and after many false starts may finally yield an album this year.

 :D Your Excellencies! Now, a hairs breadth is sooner than several months.

Stinson says: Axl had the flu,
 
 :D SARS?

the flu .................
the FLU ....... ??? .........
F       L       U ..................... i am speechless, i have no speech.

Yeah well, I hope some of the people who have bashed Axl over Philly, and claimed that these musicians are just there to play what he tells them because of the money start listening to Tommy.

Then again, they'll probably tell you Tommy knows nothing and is making it all up  ::)

That's stupidity for ya  : ok:

@#$%Funker

"He listened to Bob Dylan every morning, he says, to "keep my mind open to different ways of setting a scene." He tried his hand at string orchestration and reggae, and sought styles far from the riff-rock that has been his calling card. Pretty soon he had a batch of songs and fragments he was excited about."

Well, I guess that explains the whole Dylan sound on VGH.


The spartan conditions being reffered to here are the ones Stinson will face on his solo tour, not on any Guns tour, though the complete article does say that Stinson will 'resume his GNR duties' in November.

Thanx for the link Jarmo...Was Axl sick already at the MSG show? That's kinda weird that two years later they still can't talk about that because of legal issues. I wonder how long it's gonna last.

Have you read this one?

"He [Axl] is your best friend until you break the chain and then he doesn't want to know you. There are no half measures; you are either with him or against him."

It's up to you to expound... For me it means that if you do what Axl wants you to do, then he'll be your best friend. In other cases you are dead in his mind.

im like that, i am the nicest most loyal best friend in the world to u, but if u cross me or betray me u become pretty much dead to me

its not meaning as long as u do what axl wants and says he's your friend, its that once u betray him, once u are disloyal thats it

im also that way and can totally relate : ok:

Yeah, I'm like that too. It's about loyalty, not about you do whatever the fuck I want.

For those of you who were in Philadelphia in December 2002. Did they announce somebody was sick and the show was cancelled?

I don't think you're gonna get a more official word on it than what Tommy said. At least not until that thing is settled.


/jarmo

I'm pretty sure all the reports that came out after the Philly show said that the announcement stated a band member had become ill when they cancelled.

in school, when i used to miss a class because i was tired or lazy or sleeping through it or just had something better to do, my first excuse was always "sorry, i was sick."

but maybe that's just me...

Yeah, when they announced it they said, "tonight's guns n' roses show has been cancelled due to a health issue..."

We will never find out the true story behind the premature end of the 2002 tour.... Personally, i think Tommy is just ebing a good soldier and sticking up for his boss with the flu things, I have a hard time believing that a man who the night gave one of the best performances of his life was ill ( though who knows, plenty of sports greats have done amazing things playing through pain and illness). I feel for the Philly fans who deserve an explanation, but I doubt they will ever get a full one from either Axl or CC, even if the court issue is resolved. The important thing is that the issue does not prevent GNR from touring again.

thanks jarmo that was a good read I had no idea axl was sick with the flu, although we will never know for sure, i believe tommy, its also cool to get an insight into his world and how axl works with GNR and recording n stuff,

peace  :peace:

Whether he was sick with the flu or was having a manic depressive episode (much worse than the flu!) is immaterial. The real question is whether or not Clear Channel had enough notice to cancel the show. It sounds like they should have postponed it.....but who really knows..or cares at this point. Get over it. It was 2 years ago. :-\

Well the reporters certainly need to get over it, or was that just Tommy offering his two cents...if anyone needs to get over it...it's the band and the reporters... ::)

I liked that comment about Tommy resuming his GN'R duties in November. Maybe this is a sign that they really are planning a tour for December/ January.

If he's saying the show could have easily been postponed maybe it was one of those 24/48 hour flu viruses.

Does he think we're stupid? Yeah right...the flu ::) They called off the entire tour because he was ill for a few days??. If it was because was ill why didn't he just say? I don't believe it for a second.

This is worse than the rumour Axl didn't show because he didn't pull some bird....

Ok, the tour wasn't stopped because Axl was ill for a few days, but because he didn't made the Philly gig. It's obvious that, IF this story is true (I don't think so, but...), Clear Channel pulled the plug after the Philly riot (and probably because they already started the tour with problems), not because of Axl's flu.
I may be wrong but, in that ending of 2002, there was a big snow storm in NY and was very, very cold...  :yes:

I doubt the whole tour was cancelled for the flu. Maybe they cancelled the one Philly show for the Flu and after a second Riot, they pulled the plug?

Izzy.... can't you think round a subject?

You have a very linear mind: Axl, flu, tour cancelled, doesn't make sense.  You don't say.

How about real life actually being more complicated than that. If Axl had the flu and Clear Channel didn't deal with it properly causing the Philly riots, legal issues, blackening of the GNR name, there would have been all hell breaking loose. Now that's a reason for a tour being cancelled.

I'm not saying that's what happened but you can't take what Tommy said and translate it into "They called off the entire tour because he was ill for a few days".

@#$%Funker

Oh shut it

I simply missed out a question mark - the statement is one of disbelief - did the entire show collapse because of a days illness? I refuse to believe that - and thats what i actually said too ::)

If it was the flu they wouldn't have covered that up for 2 years. When Dizzy talked about why the Phily show was pulled he never mentioned illness.

I e-mailed the guy who wrote the article, and asked him about the tidbit of Tommy Stinson resuming his GN'R duties in November.  Specifically, I asked whether or not Tommy mentioned anything about a tour, or if this writer got the impression that a tour was in the works.  Here's what his reply was:

thanks for your note. he was fairly cryptic about GnR but I gathered that tthere will be some GnR performances somewhere in the world around nov/dec.
............

I know it's not anywhere near official or anything like that, but I thought it would be worth asking what this guy's impression was.  :peace:

Ali

Hey Ali, thanks for this. This nov/dec tour rumour is getting stronger... Hope they will do it and at least with a single by that time.   :peace:

No problem, happy to do it.  Yeah, let's hope the ball finally does get rollin' this time around.  :beer:

Ali

Glad Tommy is keeping us up to date somewhat with what is going on. Dizzy drops a few things to the press also, but that seems about it these days.

Roll on November : ok:

OK, You two,? I get the message.? :'(

I know many ppl like that with my dad at the head of the list.? That is not an uncommon trait of personality although I can?t relate. I wish I could bear the anger more than 30 mins like you do, like for a decade so that I won?t be let down twice by the same ppl.


Hey, :idea: remember the ballet legend Nijinsky.
When he made his first appearance in Paris. in 1909, performing the Slave in Fokine?s ballet Le Pavillon d?Armide he was so excited by the audience?s enthusiasm that at the end of his solo he jumped off stage and was still travelling upwards as he reached the wings. The audience went mad. Overnight ballet as an art was reborn in Europe, the one- act ballet became established as the new form.
At the very moment he had typhoid fever.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?.................. maybe it not a good example.:headscratch: