Wow. What an asshole.

[peewee_RotA]

Looking at it from the perspective of an "artist", the money wouldn't matter. And maybe that's the best thing.

I don't see that as an artistic issue in any stretch of the concept. Musicians used to be entertainers. Entertainers lived to entertain. They created great music, sang great songs, and produced great acts. Let's make a comparison. We don't even know what Slash did to get Axl to hate him and he's refusing to work with him like a stubborn child. George Burns cheated on his wife and they stayed together entertaining until she died.

It's a matter of class. Axl's an asshat, Gracie Allen has class. When you can compare a rock star to the woman that played the flagship dumb blond in her act... and the woman has more balls... that's saying something.

[|iR|Focalor]

LOL i thought fader made the 7 year old comment, was about to say that it came out the year I was born...

fader: it's probably because you were introduced to guns n roses through guitar hero or something.. tastes develop differently, it was a different time.

there's a reason people liked them decades ago ;>

For certain. Around the time they busted onto the scene, the whole hair metal thing had been huge for a few years. By 87, the gigantic Aquanet'd poofy hairdo's and makeup trend started fading from popularity. Most of the bigger "metal" bands at the time were bands like Warrant, Poison, Europe, Def Leppard, Scorpions, Ratt, Whitesnake, and several others. They all dressed like a bunch of freaky bad ass wannabe punks and sang about nothing but a bunch of radio-friendly high school girl bullshit so that high-school girls would get into the music. None of it really had much an authentic bad-ass edge to it. Then you had a small wave of bands come out from 87 to 89 that totally threw the makeup out and actually WERE the tougher edged street punks that all the faggot (bundle of sticks) hair metal bands from the early and mid 80s were trying to dress like. I'm not saying there WAS nothing heavier at the time, because there was always bands like Metallica and Slayer and Testament and Venom, but none of those bands really broke through the underground scene to make it on everyday MTV video play. Then in the late part of the 80s you had a select few bands that almost blended the harder edged stuff with just enough of a slightly radio friendly sound to make it into the big spotlight and MTV. Of course, it wasn't exactly "metal" as we understand it to be today. Honestly, Guns N Roses isn't considered heavy metal anymore, it's been pushed back mostly into the "hard rock" category. Other bands I'd put in the same category with GnR at that time... hmmm... maybe Motley Crue, they tossed out the makeup after the mid 80s. Perhaps Skid Row. They came along in 89 I think. Too bad they weren't born a little earlier. Compared to the other shit from the 80s, Skid Row was actually pretty cool, especially when you look at their guitar player Snake Sabo.

That's one thing that sucked about the hair metal scene. Some of the songs were just embarrassing, but a few of the guitarists from those bands were DAMN good. One in particular that I liked in spite of the girly faggy music they made was White Lion. Their guitarist Vitto Bratta was THE SHIT. Dude could wear a guitar THE... FUCK... OUT. And coincidentally, the bassist for White Lion, James Lomenzo, went on to join Zakk Wylde in Black Label Society from his 2nd BLS album to present. And even before Zakk started BLS, James was playing with him in his previous southern-rock/hard-rock band, Pride & Glory (1993?), and also did some bass work on Zakk's acoustic solo album, Book of Shadows, back in 1996.

[|iR|Focalor]

Looking at it from the perspective of an "artist", the money wouldn't matter. And maybe that's the best thing.

I don't see that as an artistic issue in any stretch of the concept. Musicians used to be entertainers. Entertainers lived to entertain. They created great music, sang great songs, and produced great acts. Let's make a comparison. We don't even know what Slash did to get Axl to hate him and he's refusing to work with him like a stubborn child. George Burns cheated on his wife and they stayed together entertaining until she died.

It's a matter of class. Axl's an asshat, Gracie Allen has class. When you can compare a rock star to the woman that played the flagship dumb blond in her act... and the woman has more balls... that's saying something.

Money is not art. Music is art. Dunno why you would disagree with that, it's plain as the nose on your face. Obviously George Burns and his cunt wife saw themselves as merely entertainers, but the boys in GnR view themselves as musicians FIRST AND FOREMOST. Without the music, they have nothing to present and entertain with.

If you wanna call them out for not having class... hehe... I don't think Slash himself would disagree with you that he doesn't have much class. But when you're sitting in a music studio with some overbearing asshole that refuses to hear anyone elses opinion and is pitching a temper tantrum every other hour, there is no amount of "class" to reconcile that and get a quality track put in the can. There's more to it than just getting a song done. At that level, it has to be done RIGHT. If you put out some sub-par garbage, the record company will lose money and so will you, along with a shot at making another record with that company and possibly any other record label.

Musicians are just a little different from actors. One person writes a script, and everyone plays their part. With a band, one person CAN write an entire song, but it's usually more than one person doing the writing. Even after writing, each band member will add their own flourishes and touches to the parts. When folks are doing nothing but fighting, they really don't have their creative side and heart into the piece of music they're working on. So, like I said, the music and end result suffers. If you wanna call them shitheads for not having the maturity to work through their differences and be professional about it, I can't disagree with that. But these are a bunch of street punks turned rich-as-hell rock stars. Asking them to have maturity and professionalism at all times is about as difficult as killing a grizzly bear with a spoon.

[haunted]

The 2nd paragraph explained your view more so, but I of course know skid row and I kinda busted out laughing when you mentioned them at first. I mean they're alright lol. but I agree, you ahve to truly know the hair metal / 80's scene to know what was cool from it.

[|iR|Focalor]

The 2nd paragraph explained your view more so, but I of course know skid row and I kinda busted out laughing when you mentioned them at first. I mean they're alright lol. but I agree, you ahve to truly know the hair metal / 80's scene to know what was cool from it.

I kinda didn't finish a thought I was having there too. What I meant by "too bad they weren't born earlier" was that a band like them really belonged in the shit that happened towards the middle 80's. They had that whole douchebag swagger going, with only a slightly edgier sound than some of the shit from those days. But if they had they cut their teeth back in 86, maybe the 90's they would've had enough shit behind them to make something TRULY listenable and timeless. But, eh, probably not. They probably would've ALWAYS been douchebag metal. Hell, I think their follow-up to their big debut album was called Slave to the Grind and was probably released sometime in 91 or 92. It was pretty much more of the same shit they put out in 89. Never particularly cared for Sebastian Bach, but he did make the sound work pretty well on the first couple of albums even if he did sing like a skinny girl with a hairy chest. Dude had some range and accuracy in his lungs though, that's for sure. And the way the music business works, they always prefer singers to have a tone that occupies those higher registers. That's just how it's been in the music industry since the early 70's, maybe even the 60's. A record exec will listen to 20 seconds of a demo someone hands them, and if the vocalist can't get his shit up there, they turn it off and forget about the band forever.

[|iR|Focalor]

Shit while I'm on the topic, also one VERY VERY prominent thing about Skid Row that I forgot to mention...

When you think of Skid Row's hit songs, what songs do you think of? More than likely the first thing that pops in your head is one of two songs from their self-titled first album, 18 And Life, or I Remember You. Back in the late 80's, the only thing record companies gave a shit about was that all important "power ballad". Every fucking band had one. Some had more than one, and that's all MTV and the record companies wanted any part of because that was the hot shit trend. It was a bad situation for 2 reasons. 1, because bands that had potential to become GOOD metal bands that had true potential to become something better were forced into that radio-friendly MTV money game, and after the trend died out, all they had was their identity as fucking crappy hair metal band and they weren't willing to try anything else. And 2, because bands that had NO BUSINESS being in the same room as a piece of paper with the word "cool" written on were getting thrown on MTV with their faggy looking teased long curly hair and ripped-to-shreds jeans. Can you say... WINGER? Kip Winger was a fucking ballet dancer before he became a frontman for a shitty hair metal band. But they go sticking him in a pair of skin tight leather pants, a button up shirt opened all the way exposing his hairy chest, slap a microphone in his hand and put a band behind him, and voila, you got a star that the young women get creamy panties over.

Anyway, this ones from Skid Row's first album. Kinda like this song. Was a B-side track to a cassette single I used to have of "I Remember You", I think. No, I didn't buy it, my sister did. When she eventually bought the complete album on cassette, she gave me the single she had. Dunno if I still have it, I don't think so, I don't remember seeing it in my old cassette collection.

Skid Row - Makin' A Mess

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F20x7kdzIEg

Ah, cassettes. Those were the good ole days, huh? After you'd pay too much for a cassette, you'd listen to it a couple of times and maybe leave it in a car in the summer heat and then the tape would get that great wah-wah effect added to the high frequencies from the shitty tape warping on the spindles inside the cassette. Glad that shit got phased out.