Much of Brian “Buckethead” Carroll’s popularity has risen through his temporary stint as the guitarist for AXL Rose’s makeshift post millennium disaster that he is still stubbornly referring to as Guns N Roses.   However, if you were a fan of Buckethead’s work prior to this, his inclusion in the group may have actually come as a surprise.  Being introduced to his music through previous releases such as  Bucketheadland (feat. Bootsie Collins and released on Avant-Jazz Sax legend, John Zorn’s label),  Monsters and Robots (featuring Les Claypool), and DJ Q-Bert’s animated turntable masterpiece, Wave Twisters, I myself was shocked by his involvement in GNR.  That is until I realized that, if Bon Jovi called me up and asked me to join him in a country-rap project, I would do it just based on the sheer novelty of the whole experience.  My friend Lars gave me a report on the GNR show that he saw featuring Buckethead on guitar by saying, “I still can’t tell if this is the best show I’ve ever seen or the worst“.  Based on what Lars had seen, he theorized that the tour wouldn’t last much longer due to Axl’s inability to restrain Buckethead or Carroll’s long-time collaborator, drummer Brian “Brain” Mantia, to his satisfaction.  Of course, his prediction was right yet, Buckethead seems to still be primarily associated with the corn-rowed has-been. I may be wrong in my assumptions but, I doubt that there are really too many consistent fans of Buckethead’s music.  His discography spans over 100 different albums in varying genres, including classic metal, electronic, funk, ambient, dub, jazz, and more.  This means that, even if you have heard multiple projects that the musician has been featured on, you still may not have a complete grasp of what he is capable of or that you have had much more than a glimpse of the overall scope of Carroll as an artist. (more…)

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Although River of Dreams was not like Beethoven, as Billy Joel desperately wanted me to believe back in 93, Snoop Dogg and Guns N’ Roses were actually a little closer to the genre.  I’ve been thinking about all of the reunions, repackaging, or horrible new releases from the likes of Aerosmith, Queen, the Dead Kennedys (minus Jello), Madonna, and The Police. It makes me freak out that the likelihood of the new music being listenable are slim to none. There is still some wishful thinking on the internet that Dr. Dre and Guns N’ Roses may release albums that have been years in the making but that is where their similarities end.

Dr. Dre has had quite the career since he started out with the Strip Club Anthem group World Class Wrecking Cru. I remember playing “Turn Off The Lights” all the time when I was a DJ at Déjà vu.  After his mid 80s success as a booty jam maker, he produced NWA’s Straight Outta Compton. The late 80s and the early 90s had Dr. Dre producing most of the popular gangsta rap music to come out of the era and, after NWA broke up, Dr. Dre came out with The Chronic. The original Chronic was a West Coast soundtrack to the early 90s and, once it dropped, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Nate Dogg, Kurupt, Tha Dogg Pound, and more carried gangsta rap through its first wave.  Eventually, Dr. Dre decided to come out with his own label, Aftermath, in which he released a horrible album also titled The Aftermath. After The Aftermath disaster, fans waited for years for the Chronic 2001, which eventually came out in 1999. About a year after the Chronic 2001 came out, Dr. Dre began talking about what was to be his next album, “Detox“.

“Chinese Democracy” is the urban myth of an album that was suppose to be Guns N Roses’ follow up to Use Your Illusion 1 and 2.  GNR milked Use Your Illusions 1 and 2 from 1991 until 1993.  At that point, they released an album of covers called The Spaghetti Incident, which was their attempt to make their own Garage Days Revisited.  Around this time frame (1993-1994), Guns N’ Roses transformed themselves from one of the greatest rock bands into a band that did not create new music for their fans.  Axl wanted to sound like the industrial music at the time. Rob Halford from Judas Priest had a band called Fight that was short lived.  Axl Rose never let up on his dream to make Guns N’ Roses the next Fight and, in his quest, he fired every original member of Guns N’ Roses and recast them with bizarre replacements. He spent millions of dollars recording tracks that, somehow, started to leak on to the internet around 1999. The tracks that were leaking out way back then are actually the very same tracks that are leaking out now in 2008. These tracks were to be the next Guns N’ Roses album called Chinese Democracy. (more…)

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