“Chinese Democracy” will be released in the U.S. on November 23 exclusively through Best Buy. The 14-song set will be available on CD, vinyl, and as a download. While singer Axl Rose has remained silent, co-managers Irving Azoff and Andy Gould said in a statement, “The release of ‘Chinese Democracy’ marks a historic moment in rock n’roll. We’re launching with a monumental campaign…that matches the groundbreaking sound of the album itself. GUNS N’ ROSES fans have every reason to celebrate, for this is only the beginning.”

One new song, “Shackler’s Revenge”, debuted on September 14 through the Rock Band 2 video game, while another, called “If The World”, can be heard in the new film “Body of Lies”.

“Chinese Democracy” is the first album of new material from GUNS N’ ROSES since 1991’s “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II”.
 

Talking Metal

In the latest episode of “Talking Metal”, recorded at the Channel 4 Pub in New York City’s Rockefeller Center, hosts Mark Strigl and John Ostronomy participate in the second-to-last installment of their countdown to one of the world’s most anticipated albums, GUNS N’ ROSES‘ “Chinese Democracy”. Topics include the official “Chinese Democracy” listening parties, Bumblefoot, Chris Pitman and Best Buy.

The podcast can be downloaded at www.talkingmetal.com.

“Chinese Democracy” will be released in the U.S. on November 23 exclusively through Best Buy. The 14-song set will be available on CD, vinyl, and as a download. While singer Axl Rose has remained silent, co-managers Irving Azoff and Andy Gould said in a statement, “The release of ‘Chinese Democracy’ marks a historic moment in rock n’roll. We’re launching with a monumental campaign…that matches the groundbreaking sound of the album itself. GUNS N’ ROSES fans have every reason to celebrate, for this is only the beginning.”

One new song, “Shackler’s Revenge”, debuted on September 14 through the Rock Band 2 video game, while another, called “If The World”, can be heard in the new film “Body of Lies”.

“Chinese Democracy” is the first album of new material from GUNS N’ ROSES since 1991’s “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II”.

source: blabbermouth.net

Izzy Stradlin

According to The Pulse of Radio, former GUNS N’ ROSES guitarist Izzy Stradlin hasn’t heard all of the band’s new album, “Chinese Democracy”, but he likes what he has heard. Stradlin, who quit the group in 1991, told Punk.bz, “I have listened to some tracks off the record and I enjoyed them.” As for whether his former bandmate and sole remaining original GUNS member Axl Rose was responsible for the break-up of the classic lineup, Stradlin said, “Axl is a very complicated guy, but very talented.”

Stradlin, who has continued to perform and record as a solo artist since leaving GUNS, opened up about why he quit the band, explaining, “Our lifestyle was very self-destructive. I was seeing how my friends were dying, and after some time of that I decided that I’d had enough. I didn’t want to continue being a part of that. Now we’re all clean, and that’s great.”

The guitarist says he “never imagined” that GUNS N’ ROSES would reach the heights of success that it hit following the release of its 1987 debut album, “Appetite For Destruction”.

Stradlin added that he has remained friends with the other former members of GUNS N’ ROSES. Bassist Duff McKagan played on his most recent album and he also speaks with guitarist Slash, although a planned show together fell through. Stradlin also made a guest appearance at aGUNS N’ ROSES gig in New York City two years ago.

“Chinese Democracy” goes on sale November 23 exclusively through Best Buy.

source: blabbermouth.net

Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal

GUNS N’ ROSES guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal was a guest on yesterday’s (Thursday, November 13) edition of the syndicated radio program “The Danny Bonaduce Show”. You can now download the audio of Thal’s appearance as an MP3 file at this location.

Thal will take part in an in-store performance at Vintage Vinyl in Fords, New Jersey on Wednesday, November 26. Pick up Bumblefoot’s new CD“Abnormal” or the GUNS N’ ROSES “Chinese Democracy” album to get a wristband that will gain you entrance to the in-store, which begins at 7:00 p.m

For more information, visit www.vvinyl.com.

Thal recently inked a deal with DEEP/BCD Music Group. His latest CD,“Abnormal”, which was released on July 1 via all digital outlets, was made available in October. The DEEP/BCD Music Group version of the album includes an exclusive bonus track not available anywhere else.

“Abnormal”, the follow-up to Thal’s previous offering, “Normal”, is a hard rock album flavored with a light-hearted mix of different styles and genres, with catchy hooks and blistering guitar work. It contains “17 powerful, well-delivered tracks” featuring Thal’s “incredible lyrics and seriously intense skills on the guitar,” according to a press release. Drawing influences from such diverse artists as the SEX PISTOLS, THE BEATLES and FRANK ZAPPA, the CD is “sure to appeal to fans of GUNS N’ ROSES as well as musicians everywhere.”

source: blabbermouth.net

Chinese Democracy single

GUNS N’ ROSES‘ new single, “Chinese Democracy”, has topped the general iTunes Music Store chart in Greece, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Finland. In addition to being the No. 1 song and No. 1 rock song in the above countries, it’s the No. 1 rock song in the iTunes Music Stores in the U.S., Canada, France and the U.K.

GUNS N’ ROSES‘ new album, “Chinese Democracy”, will be released in the U.S. on November 23 exclusively through Best Buy. The 14-song set will be available on CD, vinyl, and as a download. 

One new song, “Shackler’s Revenge”, debuted on September 14 through the Rock Band 2 video game, while another, called “If The World”, can be heard in the new film “Body of Lies”.

“Chinese Democracy” is the first album of new material from GUNS N’ ROSES since 1991’s “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II”.

source: blabbermouth.net

Chinese Democracy

The following listening events for GUNS N’ ROSES‘ long-awaited new album, “Chinese Democracy”, have been announced:

New York City
Nov. 17 at 7PM
All Ages
Webster Hall – The Studio
125 E 11th St.
New York, NY 10003

Dallas
Nov. 17 at 8PM
21+ Over
Whisky Bar
1930 Greenville Ave,
Dallas, TX 75206

Chicago
Nov. 17 at 8PM
21 + Over
Joe’s
940 W. Weed St .
Chicago, IL 60622

Los Angeles
Nov. 18 at 9PM
All Ages
The Roxy
9009 West Sunset Blvd., 
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Minneapolis
Nov. 18 at 6:30PM
18 + Over
Fine Line
318 1st Ave
N Minneapolis, MN 55401

Atlanta 
Nov. 19 at 7:30PM
All Ages
Tabernacle 
152 Luckie Street
Atlanta, GA 30303

San Francisco 
Nov. 20 at 7:30PM
21 + Over
Mezzanine 
444 Jessie Street,
San Francisco, CA 94103

Boston
Nov. 20 at 8PM
All Ages
Cavern Club At Hard Rock Café
22-24 Clinton St. 
Boston, MA 02109

Detroit
Nov. 20 at 7 PM 
All Ages
St. Andrews Hall
431 E Congress St.
Detroit, MI 48226

The listening events are free and open to the public. No cell phones or recording devices are allowed.

Pre-order “Chinese Democracy” on BestBuy.com and bring your receipt for “front-of-the-line access” plus receive a FREE exclusive“Chinese Democracy” T-shirt at these events, while supplies last.

“Chinese Democracy” will be released in the U.S. on November 23 exclusively through Best Buy. The 14-song set will be available on CD, vinyl, and as a download. While singer Axl Rose has remained silent, co-managers Irving Azoff and Andy Gould said in a statement, “The release of ‘Chinese Democracy’ marks a historic moment in rock n’roll. We’re launching with a monumental campaign…that matches the groundbreaking sound of the album itself. GUNS N’ ROSES fans have every reason to celebrate, for this is only the beginning.”

One new song, “Shackler’s Revenge”, debuted on September 14 through the Rock Band 2 video game, while another, called “If The World”, can be heard in the new film “Body of Lies”.

“Chinese Democracy” is the first album of new material from GUNS N’ ROSES since 1991’s “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II”.

Chinese Democracy

Let’s get right to it: The first Guns n’ Roses album of new, original songs since the first Bush administration is a great, audacious, unhinged and uncompromising hard-rock record. In other words, it sounds a lot like the Guns n’ Roses you know. At times, it’s the clenched-fist five that made 1987’s perfect storm, Appetite for Destruction; more often, it’s the one sprawled across the maxed-out CDs of 1991’s Use Your Illusion I and II, but here compressed into a convulsive single disc of supershred guitars, orchestral fanfares, hip-hop electronics, metallic tabernacle choirs and Axl Rose’s still-virile, rusted-siren singing.

If Rose ever had a moment’s doubt or repentance over what Chinese Democracy has cost him in time (13 years), money (14 studios are listed in the credits) and body count — including the exit of every other founding member of the band — he left no room for it in these 14 songs. “I bet you think I’m doin’ this all for my health,” Rose cracks through the saturation-bombing guitars in “I.R.S.,” one of several glancing references on the album to what he knows a lot of people think of him: that Rose, now 46, has spent the last third of his life running off the rails, in half-light. But when he snaps, “All things are possible/I am unstoppable,” in the thumper “Scraped,” that’s not loony hubris — just a good old rock & roll “fuck you,” the kind that made him and the old band hot and famous in the first place.

Something else Rose broadcasts over and over onChinese Democracy: Restraint is for suckers. There is plenty of familiar guitar firepower — the stabbing-dagger lick that opens the first track, “Chinese Democracy,” the sand-devil fuzz in “Riad N’ the Bedouins” and the looping squeals over the grand anguish of “Street of Dreams.” But what Slash and Izzy Stradlin used to do with two guitars now takes a wall of ‘em. On some tracks, Rose has up to five guys — Robin Finck, Buckethead, Paul Tobias, Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal and Richard Fortus — riffing and soloing in broad, saw-toothed blurs. And that’s no drag. I still think the wild, superstuffed “Oh My God” — the early Chinese Democracy track wasted on the 1999 End of Dayssoundtrack — beats everything on Guns n’ Roses’ 1993 covers album, The Spaghetti Incident?

Most of these songs also go through multiple U-turns in personality, as if Rose kept trying new approaches to a hook or a bridge and then decided, “What the hell, they’re all cool.” “Better” starts with what sounds like hip-hop voicemail — severely pinched guitar, drum machine and a near-falsetto Rose (”No one ever told me when/I was alone/They just thought I’d know better”) — before blowing up into vintage Sunset Strip wallop. “If the World” has Buckethead plucking acoustic Spanish guitar over a blaxploitation-film groove, while Rose shows that he still holds a long-breath vowel — part torture victim, part screaming jet — like no other rock singer.

And there is so much going on in “There Was a Time” — strings and Mellotron, a full-strength choir and Rose’s overdubbed sour-growl harmonies, wah-wah guitar and a false ending (more choir) — that it’s easy to believe Rose spent most of the past decade on that arrangement alone. But it is never a mess, more like a loud mass of bad memories and hard lessons. In the first lines, Rose goes back to a beginning much like his own — “Broken glass and cigarettes/ Writin’ on the wall/It was a bargain for the summer/An’ I thought I had it all” — then piles on the wreckage along with the orchestra and guitars. By the end, it’s one big melt of missing and kiss-off (”If I could go back in time . . . But I don’t want to know it now”). If this is the Guns n’ Roses that Rose kept hearing in his head all this time, it is obvious why two guitars, bass and drums were never going to be enough.

It is plain, too, that he thinks this Guns n’ Roses is aband, as much as the one that recorded “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Used to Love Her” and “Civil War.” The voluminous credits that come withChinese Democracy certainly give detailed credit where it is due. My favorite: “Initial arrangement suggestions: Youth on ‘Madagascar.” Rose takes the big one — “Lyrics N’ Melodies by Axl Rose” — but shares full-song bylines with other players on all but one track. Bassist Tommy Stinson plays on nearly every song, and keyboardist Dizzy Reed, the only survivor from theIllusion lineup, does the Elton John-style piano honors on “Street of Dreams.”

But Rose still sings a lot about the power of sheer, solitary will even when he throws himself into a bigger fight, like “Chinese Democracy.” In “Madagascar,” which Rose has played live for several years now, he samples both Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech and dialogue from Cool Hand Luke. And at the end of the album, on the bluntly titled “Prostitute,” Rose veers from an almost conversational tenor, over a ticking-bomb shuffle, to five-guitar barrage, orchestral lightning and righteous howl: “Ask yourself/Why I would choose/To prostitute myself/To live with fortune and shame.” To him, the long march to Chinese Democracy was not about paranoia and control. It was about saying “I won’t” when everyone else insisted, “You must.” You may debate whether any rock record is worth that extreme self-indulgence. Actually, the most rock & roll thing about Chinese Democracy is he doesn’t care if you do.

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