Guns N’ Roses

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, March, 2007.

Someone very special told me that Axl Rose is a big INsite reader. He buys it every month. He was going to contribute a tour diary, but that would mean he’d actually have to tour. Plus, it would probably take the place of the DVD reviews, and forget that. I need swag.

Okay, so there’s a small element of LIESLIESLIES to all of that. But I do talk to Axl. And right now, all I can say is that it’s not going to work. Do you read me, Axl? It’s not happening. Buckethead, Rivethead, Celery Head: nope. We want Slash and Duff back. We’d like Izzy, if you can swing it, but Gilby’s probably learned how to play since The Spaghetti Incident. If you can teach him to write, it may work out. Steve’s probably raking in millions with Adler’s Appetite, but we love Matt Sorum. Try to secure him in between Cult reunions.

Anything else is merely Axl N’ Pals. You can hire Jeffrey Coombs to reanimate Jimi and Duane, sew them together, give the thing a guitar and win a Nobel Prize for Musical Taste. It still won’t matter, because it still won’t be Slash.

Until the G n’ R faithful finally get their due (even if it’s a one-off song over the end credits of Road House 3), we’ll always have retro. It’s just a shame that Chrome Dreams, whose Sexy Intellectual titles have been fabulous over the past year, couldn’t get it together for the band that made me a lifelong metalhead.

At first, the new double-disc Guns DVD seems like a steal. It contains two documentaries, one on the band, the other more Axl-centric (in keeping with the band’s history, I suppose). The cover art is a classic band pose: even Steve and Izzy recline like this beautiful thing will never end. The back of the box promises goodies like “full colour picture discs and deluxe DVD slipcases,” making it a “collector’s item of the highest order.”

So heaven isn’t too far away. Get ready for nothing but a good time. No need to live on a prayer, because…

Nope. It’s awful. It’s just repackaged baloney from a few years ago, apparently before Chrome Dreams started taking advantage of fair use laws. Unlike their Nirvana, Velvet Underground and Rolling Stones discs, these documentaries contain no musical clips of the band. That’s usually the first sign of a bad time, but the interviews are just atrocious. While other documentaries from this company have included some fairly insightful talking heads, this one pretty much phones it in. You do get to hear from the girl who let the band borrow her apartment, though.

Not that G n’ R was ever as good as the rock press made them out to be (no band is), but fans deserve better than this rehashed one-off. I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I’ve seen better stuff on VH1. Being an avid fan of Chrome Dreams’ good stuff, I honestly look forward to a genuine effort at a real Guns doc. Even with “superb packaging including inserts,” this product is rusty and wilted.