There is a new incarnation of Guns N' Roses these days. With an album unfortunately titled
Chinese Democracy that is never to be released and featuring all sorts of mismatched stars including,
Robin Finck of
NIN,
Buckethead (a friend of
Primus) and Brain, the most recent drummer for Primus.
To be totally accurate, the previous writeup should include Dizzy Reed as the keyboardist, as he was an official member of the band, and Gilby Clarke, Izzy Stradlin's replacement.
The current incarnation of GN'R could also include Tommy Stinson of The Replacements and Josh Freese from The Vandals who has since moved on to A Perfect Circle.
The story is essentially that Axl Rose woke up from his 9 year hiatus and encountered a world that did not need Guns N Roses. Maybe, for a brief time in between Warrant and Nirvana, the world needed Guns N' Roses, but times have changed and no one needs the phony witticism of a phrase like "Chinese Democracy". Axl Rose is not going to be the guy to talk to me about world power structures, especially not using pseudo-clever oxymoron attempts to do so.
I saw a bootleg video of their performance at "Rock In Rio" earlier this year. Axl's hair isn't gone, but who cares about that considering that his voice is totally shot. Buckethead wears a KFC chicken bucket on his head which he did long before he did anything with GN'R, but he inadvertantly looks like he is mocking Slash's tendency to wear top hats on stage. Some of their new stuff sounds like that crappy song from the 80's, Final countdown, by Europe. Intolerable.