An AP report explains that China is none too pleased by the new GNR album (which pretty much blows, by the way…there are plenty of kickass guitar solos but the songs are weak as hell).

State media are ripping into Axl’s opus, without actually mentioning its name or any of the offending lyrics:

BEIJING—A newspaper published by China’s ruling Communist Party is blasting the latest Guns N’ Roses album as an attack on the Chinese nation.

Delayed since recording began in 1994, “Chinese Democracy” hit stores in the U.S. on Sunday, although it is unlikely to be sold legally in China, where censors maintain tight control over films, music and publications.

In an article Monday headlined “American band releases album venomously attacking China,” the Global Times said unidentified Chinese Internet users had described the album as part of a plot by some in the West to “grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn.”

The album “turns its spear point on China,” the article said.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to faxed questions about the article, although a spokesman speaking on routine condition of anonymity said: “We don’t need to comment on that.”

Spokesmen for the Culture Ministry and State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, government bodies that regulate album releases and performances, could not be reached for comment.

The Global Times article referred only to the title of the album and not to specific song lyrics. The record’s title track makes a reference to the Falun Gong meditation movement that was banned by China as an “evil cult” and warns “if your Great Wall rocks blame yourself,” in an apparent message to the country’s authoritarian government.

Here’s the best part of the article: revelations about the strict regulations on foreign rockers when they perform in China. Long story short, Harry Connick Jr. has a serious bone to pick with Bjork!

China approves only limited numbers of foreign films and recordings for distribution each year, partly due to political concerns but also to protect domestic producers.

Live performances are also closely regulated, with bands forced to submit set lists beforehand. The Rolling Stones were asked not to play several songs with suggestive lyrics during their 2006 China debut, including “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Woman,” “Beast of Burden” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together.”

“Beast of Burden”?!?! Chinese censors are frickin’ prudes.

Earlier this year, bandleader Harry Connick Jr. was forced to make last-minute changes to his show in Shanghai because an old song list was mistakenly submitted to Chinese authorities to secure the performance permit for the concert. Authorities insisted he play the songs on the original list, even though his band did not have the music for them.

That came just a week after Icelandic singer Bjork embarrassed authorities by shouting “Tibet!” at the end of a Shanghai concert, prompting stricter vetting of foreign performers.

Thanks for nothing, you Icelandic troublemaker!! Next time you come to New Orleans, it’s goin’ DOWN.

In a post at Seattle’s DAILY WEEKLY blog, Nirvana bassist Krist Novaselic revisits the tragic night he decided to throw his bass in the air following a performance at the MTV music awards. It landed on his head. The evidence:

Krist’s story is entertaining, hilarious, self-deprecating, and believe us when we tell you it has an amazing ending.

Here are some highlights:

I walked around and checked out the stage area. Other bands were showing up. I said hello to the fellows in Pearl Jam and the Black Crowes. Sammy Hagar said hi. There was Howard Stern in a suit made to let his bare buttocks hang out.

I eventually made it to the food service area, where Kurt and Courtney were at a table with their newborn daughter, Frances. They told me that Axl Rose had walked by and Courtney started teasing him. She yelled, “Axl, Axl—you’re the godfather!” Upon hearing this, Axl apparently got very annoyed, walked over to Kurt, and demanded that he keep his woman in line. Kurt turned to Courtney and sarcastically asked his woman to keep in line and left it at that.

We’re pretty sure the actual quote was, “Keep your bitch in line.”

Axl then split. Of course, Kurt and Courtney were musing over Axl’s response in the context of society’s patriarchal tendencies. My thought was that Rose shouldn’t have gotten bent out of shape. He should have walked over and asked to kiss the baby or something!

At the same time, Kurt wanted to play the tune “Rape Me” and was adamant about it. The MTV people were upset. We were being asked from all corners not to. I thought we should play something off Nevermind, do the gig, and leave. Easy, right? No. Kurt was very stubborn and refused to play another tune. There was quite a swirl around this issue.

[...]

I was walking toward the stage and came across my now-friend and colleague, Duff McKagan. I think Duff was also under the influence. He must have heard something from Rose and had a terse word for me. I was already a little bent out of shape and instantly replied with the same sentiment. The production people grabbed me and we continued toward the stage.

I was now even more shook up. One should take the stage in a good frame of mind, but I wasn’t there. Nirvana gets introduced, and we start playing our prank, then switch into “Lithium.” I’m plugged into some awful bass rig that’s distorting terribly. I can barely hear what I’m playing, and the tone deteriorates into an inaudible mess. Fuck it—time for the bass-toss schtick. Up it goes!!!!! I always try to get good air—I bet I hit over 25 feet, easy! But no matter how high it went, I was not on my game— the only time I’ve ever dropped it was then in front of 300 million people. Ouch! I was fine, but I faked like I was knocked out, perhaps expressing my inner torment over a taxing evening. (Maybe I was just embarrassed.)

I stumbled offstage toward the green room with my hands on my forehead. I walked straight into the bathroom and looked at a bloody forehead in the mirror. I washed my face off and put a paper towel to my head. Paramedics came in and put a little bandage on, then handed me a long medical release form to sign. Standing behind them was Brian May, the guitarist of Queen, with a glass of chilled champagne. I signed the release just to get the medics away from me so I could take a sip of Mr. May’s wonderful medicine. Ahh, yes!!! Moments later Dave Grohl burst in. He’d been looking all over for me, only to find me enjoying a calm glass of bubbly with Mr. May. It was a relief for all!

Is there any way that ending could have been more satisfying?? Brian May to the rescue!

Awesome.

[DAILY WEEKLY via ROLLING STONE via Nirvanahead C Dave]

A few months back, New York magazine’s Vulture blog asked, “Which will come out first, [Guns 'N' Roses album] Chinese Democracy or [Spike Jonze's Maurice Sendak movie] Where the Wild Things Are?”

Well, we now have our answer. Despite being buried in the dark crevasses of Axl’s mind since about 1994, Chinese Democracy was leaked in its entirety yesterday and should be on store shelves by Christmas. More to come on that if it turns out to be any good…

As for Jonze’s Maurice Sendak adaptation (with script by Dave Eggers), it’s pretty well mired in development hell. Which is a damn shame, since the book is a classic, Spike Jonze rules and everything about the adaptation sounds awesome.

ROTI contributor C. Dave sent us something of an update. Ain’t it Cool News ran a typically self-indulgent interview transcript with Spike in which most of the questions are longer than the answers – nobody cares what you think, “Moriarty” – but still delivered some interesting tidbits:

Spike Jonze: We were trying to make it as organic as possible, but even then… but the guys in the suits, the actors in the suits were incredible, and they really worked hard. I didn’t want performances of the suits or the animation to be like traditional puppetry or animation where everything’s sort of over-indicated, everything’s like “Wow wow WOW! Hey Max, how you doing!” It’s like they think everything has to be sold.

So we shot the whole movie with the voice actors on a soundstage, and we just shot it like a workshop. It looked like some sort of ‘70s experimental theatre or something like that, because it was just this blank soundstage with shag carpeting, and they were all in their socks so the sound was muted. It was just a really dead soundstage, sound-wise, and they could just act it out. We’d take foam cubes and build little trees or huts or whatever, and then we’d just workshop the scene like I would do with a live-action movie, and just find what the scene is about through blocking and improvising dialogue. And out of that stuff, then… because puppeteering and animation isn’t spontaneous in any way, but I wanted the movie to feel alive and immediate. I knew I could get that with Max, but I wanted the wild things also to have that kind of performance, so by doing that with the actors where everything is spontaneous, the guys in the suits would feed off of that. They would watch the tapes; we’d do playback for them so they’d be acting along to James Gandolfini’s voice in these speakers. And then the guy in the suit would just “feel” what Gandolfini did in his body and his shoulders, so after playback, when he starts to go, “Well… I don’t know, Max,” or whatever the line was, every little head movement would be intentional, because Gandolfini did everything with intention. They’re actors, so they aren’t even really thinking about it. With puppeteering, you have to decide what the intention is and then you have to figure out how to communicate it, because every puppet works differently. So nothing’s immediate or spontaneous about that form.

But with actors, it’s just something that happens between two or more of them. Somebody will say something, and the other will react in a way that just feels true in that moment. So we used that as the sort of basis for their performances and for the animation. It was like working backwards, finding what I wanted it to feel like and then creating a process.

[...]

I think it started from what Maurice said in the beginning. One of the things I was worried about is that the book is just so beloved to so many people. And as I started to have ideas for it I was worried that I was just making what it means to me, and what the book triggers in me from when I was a kid. And I’d be worried that other people were gonna be disappointed, because it’s like adapting a poem. It can mean so much to so many different people.

And Maurice was very insistent that that’s all I had to do… just make what it was to me, just to make something personal and make something that takes kids seriously and doesn’t pander to them. He told me that when his book came out, it was considered dangerous. It was panned by critics and child psychologists and librarians, because it wasn’t how kids were talked to. And it took like only two years after the book was out that kids started finding it in the libraries, and basically kids discovered it and made it what it is. And now it’s 40 years later and it’s a classic. So he said you just have to make something according to your own instinct.

[...]

I went over to Lance’s house the other night and Pearl, his daughter, who just turned 10… she was asking me… cause I showed the kids the movie, all the kids that came with us to Australia, Eric’s kids and our producer Vince’s… we showed the kids the movie a few weeks ago. And Pearl’s like, “I was thinking about the movie, Spike, and what’s the moral of that story? ‘Cause it made me sad.”

And I don’t know, I think the idea that Maurice talked about is not to be scared of those feelings. Kids are complicated, and they’re in touch with all those feelings. I didn’t want to make a movie that was just sad, or just heavy, or just anxious. I think I tried to make a movie that had a lot of the other sides of kids too; there are also soft feelings and sweet feelings and I think I tried to make the movie have Max’s imagination, Max’s sense of play, of love and hope and caring, but just let him be complicated, and the world that he goes to in order to figure out what’s going on be as complicated as he needs it to be. And so, I don’t know. For better or worse, we made it.

[...]

AICN: …I think we try and make kids into saints in movies, and we kind of smooth off the rough edges, and it’s just so much more interesting to see a real kid, and to see how kids try and process the world.

JONZE: And I think that’s what freaked the studio out about the movie too. It wasn’t a studio film for kids, or it wasn’t a traditional film about kids. We didn’t have like a Movie Kid in our movie, or a Movie Performance in a Movie Kid world. We had a real kid and a real world, and I think that’s sort of where our problem was. In the end they realized the movie is what it is, and there’s no real way to… it’s sort of like they were expecting a boy and I gave birth to a girl. [laughs] So they just needed their time to sort that out and figure out how they were going to learn to love their new daughter.

…[making the film] just took a lot longer. And that was hard, but you know, in the end I got to make my movie. And with the version you saw, I was trying to get the money to do the pick-ups I wanted to do, and it just took a lot longer to finish it.

The Vulture blog reviews all of this and concludes, “This movie will never be released.”

For what it’s worth, the Hollywood Stock Exchange is still guardedly optimistic:

It’s never a good sign when a movie takes this long to come out. But given the awesomeness of the people involved in this production and the brilliance of the source material…we’re keeping our fingers crossed.