Axl Rose as Tough Guy: Grade A+

TMZ caught it all on video. Axl Rose transformed into Asshole Rose and beat on a paparazzo the other night before boarding a plane at LAX for his Guns N’ Roses show in Taipei. A move that probably rivals Sean Penn’s former paparazzi anger, Axl at least warned the photographers about one of them touching his girlpal:

“Touch her again, I’ll break his fucking neck.”

Axl then transforms; he punches one of the photographers to the ground and was well on his way to giving the poor guy a Billy Batts beating ala Goodfellas. All that was needed was the song “Atlantis” by Donovan playing in the background.

Good thing more sober-minded people pulled Axl away in time.
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Bring Back Dave Mustaine, the Heathen

Dave Mustaine says he doesn’t want to talk about Metallica anymore. Well, I wish he could make the same promise about his new faith, Christianity. To me, religion serves best when private and personal. I hate to hear people go on and on about it, as if they are holding the key to a collective truth, instead of merely their own personal truth. It’s even worse when these “enlightened” ones throw the apocalypse in there, as some grand world-order conspiracy. As a person who has always appreciated Dave Mustaine’s creative spark, I’m feeling pretty dismayed when reading his latest interviews.

Here’s a recent sample of one of his interviews with prisonplanet.tv (above):

“Well, me as a Christian, I believe that it’s a one-world government, one-world currency. It’s part of… My belief — and I said so in [MEGADETH's classic song] ‘Holy Wars’ — is that it’s part of the master plan. It’s what I believe. I ascribed to that when I became a Christian. I know that there’s gonna be a cataclysmic ramping up of all of these things we’re seeing right now, and it gets worse and it gets worse and it gets worse. We’re watching our country disintegrate right now, and it’s scary.  …. And that’s what ‘Endgame’ is all about — it’s about educating our fans and showing them a little bit about what’s going within the previous administration and that things haven’t changed at all; it’s just more of people being run by the people who have the money.”

“… that’s what ‘Endgame’ is all about — it’s about educating our fans.” Is Mustaine a missionary now? Having this annoying tidbit planted in my head, how can I enjoy listening to “Endgame” again?

One comment on blabber mouth put it best:

maybe Buddhism should be the spiritual path for you: no more insecurity, no more conspiracies, no more resentment, no more anger, no more embarrassing interviews…

Or maybe Mustaine can return to being an anti-establishment heathen a lot of us used to love. In other words, once again becoming a metal missionary, instead of a conspiracy-driven, divine Christian one.

Should The Killers Singer, Brandon Flowers, Go Solo?

Brandon Flowers annoys the hell out of me sometimes. Mostly the comments he makes. But it is undeniable the The Killers would not be the same band without him.

Rumors were recently floating around that he would embark on a solo career. And The Killers camp quickly shot them down (of course). And then Flowers himself shot down the rumors.

It is inevitable, however, that Flowers will one day go out on his own. Everyone from Daltrey to Halford has done it. A lot of times it means dire consequences for the band at large. Not always, though. Flowers, like many frontmen, has too big of an ego not to go solo one of these days. That’s my take. When it does happen, hopefully, it will be when The Killers are on a short break.

Now if only the band could concentrate on putting out more music like their “Hot Fuss” disc.

Amy Winehouse Hooks Up With Ex, Blake Fielder-Civil, for “Love” Rendezvous

Amy Winehouse seeking out some inspiration for songwriting, perhaps. Maybe she has writer’s block and needs to blow it apart by re-introducing more drama into her life?

That drama comes in the form of her ex-husband. It was reported by the British tabs today (The Sun has pap photos, above) that she met Blake for a secret rendezvous. The Daily Mail reported that the crazy couple “were holed up” in a flat “for the next 36 hours.”

This is the same guy who recently bragged to the tabs that he introduced the singer to drugs, etc. And then he topped it off by telling the world that Wino hit the crack pipe onstage, between songs. Yes, what a sweetheart.

But Amy Winehouse still seeks the guy out. Isn’t love grand?

One concerned friend says:

‘The romance is back on and everyone is frantic with worry. They have vowed to one another never to get back into drugs. But together they just went into self destruct mode – and it was their separation that saved them.’

Yep. Let the countdown to destruction begin again. Amy Winehouse may become Wino once again.

Nowhere Boy, A Film About John Lennon’s Teenage Years, Is Slated For Boxing Day UK Premiere

Nowhere Boy, a film about John Lennon’s teenage years in Liverpool that was directed by Sam Taylor Wood, is being released in the UK on December 26th. Lennon (pictured above in a Bob Gruen photo) is portrayed in the film by Aaron Johnson. Kristin Scott Thomas plays Mimi Smith, Lennon’s aunt, who raised him. Anne-Marie Duff portrays Lennon’s mother Julia and Thomas Sangster plays Paul McCartney. The screenplay was written by Matt Greenhalgh, who also wrote the excellent 2007 feature Control, a film that told the story of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.

Yesterday’s (December 6th’s) edition of The Sunday Times of London published a feature about Nowhere Boy‘s director Sam Taylor Wood. In the article, Wood discusses the challenge of making a film about an icon like John Lennon. She said:

“It was nerve-racking and daunting, but I also went into it quite naively. I don’t think I really took on the scale of that fact until people started saying, ‘A film about John Lennon? How are you feeling about it?’ But I couldn’t start letting myself get too panicked about it, because I knew it would start to destabilize me. I knew that if I could shut that out and just focus on a coming-of-age story, rather than who he goes on to be, then I could make the film.”

You can read the full article about Sam Taylor Wood and Nowhere Boy from the December 6th edition of The Sunday Times of London by clicking here.

To watch the trailer for Nowhere Boy, click below:

While the film will be opening on December 26th in the UK, I don’t have any info about when it will premiere in America. When it does play here, though, it will probably be on the art house circuit.

On the subject of John Lennon, tomorrow marks the sad anniversary of his murder in New York City. I can’t believe that 29 years have passed since that awful Monday evening in December 1980.

John Lennon 1940-1980 R.I.P.

The Times Of London Runs Excellent Feature Article On Paul McCartney

Saturday’s (December 5th’s) edition of The Times of London ran an interesting and informative feature piece on Paul McCartney (pictured above in a Ruth Ward photo). McCartney is currently promoting his CD/DVD combo Good Evening New York City, which was recorded during three shows that McCartney did at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, this summer. In the article, which was written by Robert Crampton, McCartney discusses many aspects of his career as well as his sometimes stormy creative partnership with John Lennon.

At one point in the article, McCartney discussed trying to balance what the audience wants to hear with what he wants to play. He said:

“You do have a feeling the Beatles songs are gonna be the most popular. People come to the show and often if they don’t know a song you can see them thinking, ‘This is a good chance to go and get a beer’. I’ve always been reluctant to give them a chance to go and get a beer. Concession people hate me. [But] they’ve paid money to come and see a show. I could pull the moody artist and say, ‘You’re only getting three, ’cos it’s my show’. With Wings I did that, didn’t even do three, even though promoters would say, ‘Can you just do Yesterday at the end?’ I’d go, ‘No’. I didn’t wanna crap up my second group by suggesting what was already in people’s minds: ‘Hey, the Beatles were better’. Once we’d done Wings it was OK, we’ll feed in some Beatles songs. These days, it doesn’t matter.”

To read the article in full, click here.

The page also includes a video of McCartney and his band performing The Beatles’ “Day Tripper” at one of the Citi Field shows.

Muse Makes Pope’s Playlist

This is a accomplishment most bands can’t brag about. Muse on the Vatican playlist.

According to the Telegraph U.K., the Vatican’s MySpace Music page contains everything from classical to rap (Tupac!) to folk (Fleet Foxes) to rock (Muse’s “Uprising” from their new album The Resistance). And the Vatican states:

“This playlist is a perfect mix of classical, world and contemporary music. … The genres are very different from each other, but all these artists share the aim to reach the heart of good minded people.”

All I have to say is better the Pope’s playlist than Glenn Beck’s. Who, incidentally, is not exactly the first person you think of when you hear the words “good minded people.”

But, really, who knows if the Pope really listens to any of this “official” playlist (even though he does carry around an iPod). But the fact that Muse is on here — let alone a #3 positioning — says something.

I’ve always suspected there was a halo hovering over Matthew Bellamy’s head.

Vatican playlist:

1. Advocata Nostra – Music From The Vatican. From the album Alma Mater featuring the voice of Pope Benedict XVI.

2. Uprising – Muse. Single from the album, The Resistance.

3. Causa Nostrae Laetitiae – Music From The Vatican. From the album Alma Mater.

4. Il Mare Mi Salva – Rossomalpelo. Song from the band led by contemporary Italian singer songwriter Serge Gaggiotti

5. After The Rain – Dame Shirley Bassey. From the album The Performance.

6. Coexist – Nour Eddine. Song from Moroccan Musician, based in Italy.

7. Don Giovanni – Mozart.

8. Rafaele Merry Del Val – Lorenzo Perosi Inni Mottetti e Canzoni, Pablo Colino & Coro Academica Filarmonica Romana.

9. He Doesn’t Know Why – Fleet Foxes.

10. Changes – Tupac Shakur.

11. Regina Coeli – Music From The Vatican. From the album Alma Mater.

12. Mi sarete Testimoni – Santo Subito! (DVD). Music DVD embodying the voice and image of The Pope.

Weezer Bush Crash Could Have Been A lot Worse

The band and its family and friends give “kudos” to the band’s bus driver for having the skill to maneuver the bus while it skidded off the highway Sunday morning in upstate New York. Friend and band blogger, Karl Koch, reported on Weezer’s website:

The driver employed every ounce of skill he had in fighting to keep the bus upright, as the vehicle violently fishtailed over the highway. And while the bus did indeed go off the road, plunging about 8-10 vertical feet into a muddy ravine off to the right of the Thruway thus coming to a very abrupt stop, it did not flip or roll, despite having plowed right over a guardrail, flattening it. Kudos to the driver for somehow keeping things as level as they could be – surely this story would have been far more tragic if not for his actions.

Read more of his account here.

Rivers Cuomo, however, still received injuries and was hospitalized with broken ribs and “very painful internal damage.” Rescuers (above) had to use the jaws of life to get Rivers out of the bus.

All serious enough for Weezer to cancel the rest of their December tour.

L.A.’s Roxy — the Center of Sunset Strip and its 80s Hair Metal — Attempts to Revitalize Itself

There’s a good article on the Sunset Strip’s legendary club, the Roxy, and its owner Nic Adler (above), in today’s New York Times.

The club has a lot of history — it was certainly fun to visit during glam metal’s heyday — and Adler has a sense of that and its place in the future.

“Having the Roxy be around another 30 years is important to me,” said Nic Adler, 36, who operates the club, and now owns it with his father. “I was handed a legend, and I am expected to continue that legacy.”

It’s too bad Gazzari’s — once a rival club and the place where Van Halen got its start — had the opposite fate.

Michael Jackson Art as Creepy as it Comes

Of course there would have to be male cherubs.

Read more at nypost.com about these “masterpieces.”