For the first twenty minutes of Guns N’ Roses’s rain-soaked headlining performance at Brazil’s Rock In Rio Festival earlier this month, frontman Axl Rose wore a big yellow raincoat, and from the coverage the band’s performance has gotten, you would be forgiven for thinking that this wardrobe choice was the most noteworthy thing about their set. Nevermind that the band played for a full two hours more once he stripped off the coat (even though the rain never let up). At the start of the performance, Axl promised, “I’m gonna try to focus on singing rather than running around like an idiot,” and while our gut reaction to that is “Why not do both?” we figure we’ll leave that to the professional—which is a word we chose intentionally here, since the once infamously unreliable singer put in the work, and then some, to close out the festival.

Perhaps the most significant detail was the band’s performance of “Estranged”—the first time that Axl Rose has sung the song live since 1993, when it was the last single off either Use Your Illusion album. This tour’s press material promised “all the classic hits,” but until we saw footage of “Estranged” we weren’t sure whether that was just hype. We try not to buy the narrative arcs that partially define musicians in popular culture, but it’s hard not to find that symbolic of a last step towards reconciliation with a complicated Guns N’ Roses career—just in time for the band’s first United States tour since 2006. The Rock In Rio Festival has always been kind to Guns N’ Roses—it’s where the band staged its first live return in 2001—so if we were the superstitious type, we’d say that the upcoming American tour looked rather promising. The live clips on YouTube of the other dates they’ve played in Argentina since seem to support this notion. The American tour kicks off at the end of this month (dates after the jump).

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The nominees for the 2012 Class of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame were announced earlier today. The group is, as it has been for the last few years, an eclectic bunch made up of artists from a wide variety of musical genres: New nominees this year include The Cure, Eric B. & Rakim, Guns N’ Roses, Heart, Freddie King, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rufus and Chaka Khan, the Small Faces, the Spinners, and War, while holdovers that failed to get inducted last year are Beastie Boys, Donna Summer, Donovan, and Laura Nyro.

The RRHOF’s induction process is mysterious and secretive, so you don’t see the same kind of public campaigning by nominees for induction that you see in, say, the sports world. However, that doesn’t mean that the committee who makes the decisions of who gets honored and who gets snubbed isn’t reading this blog post. So, with that in mind, vote for the act that you feel is most deserving of the honor in our poll below, and maybe, just maybe, Jann Wenner and his band of choosy cronies will pay heed!

Rock Hall of Fame Nominates Guns ‘N Roses, Joan Jett, Beastie Boys [FoxNews]

The Video Music Awards are a celebration of the best music video work that musicians and technical personnel have to offer. They’re also a live event attended by more than a few outsized personalities, all interacting with each other in close proximity. Part of what makes the event so exciting to us is the tension that proximity creates. Sometimes, though, it boils over past professional rivalry into personal beef.

With that in mind, here is a look back at the ten most memorable VMA fights. Will anyone get into it this year? (Pitbull and Lindsay Lohan?) We’ll be tuning in to MTV on Sunday at 9 p.m. to find out.

[Images: Getty Images]

Moby‘s comments last week about what types of pop are and aren’t music isn’t the first time he’s taken shots at other artists. At the 2001 Grammy Awards he called Eminem ”a racist, a homophobe, and a misogynist.” But he’s not the only artist who’s feuded over art (and, implicitly, integrity). Here are the five most notable feuds of the last 20 years.

FEUD: Nirvana vs. Guns N’ Roses
HOW IT STARTED: Nirvana never liked the lyrical misogyny and homophobia of Guns N’ Roses, but the feud officially got underway when Nirvana turned down an offer to open for the band on tour.
KEY NIRVANA PULLQUOTE: Kurt Cobain, interviewed by Kevin Allman in the February 1992 issue of The Advocate:

I can’t even waste my time on that band, because they’re so obviously pathetic and untalented. I used to think that everything in the mainstream pop world was crap, but now that some underground bands have been signed with majors, I take Guns N’ Roses as more of an offense. I have to look into it more: They’re really talentless people, and they write crap music, and they’re the most popular rock band on the earth right now. I can’t believe it.

KEY GUNS ‘N’ ROSES PULLQUOTE: Axl Rose, on stage in Seattle: “Nirvana would rather stay home and shoot drugs with their bitch wives than tour with us.”
WINNER: At the time, Nirvana by a mile, but as time has gone on and Cobain-as-icon has lost some of its political edge, it’s now closer to a draw.
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Sorry, Michael! The doggone #1 spot is mine!

Following last May’s update to their list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” Rolling Stone will be issuing an update to the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time,” originally published in two parts in separate issues of the magazine in 2004 and 2005.

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Are children ages 5-12 desperate to be introduced to hair-metal ballads that are decades older than they are? Kidz Bop, the now-venerable series of age-appropriate kid-chorus cover compilations, hopes so: May 17 will see the release of Kidz Bop Sings Monster Ballads. Life As I Know It‘s own Bret Michaels and his daughters Raine and Jorja have recorded what will likely be the jewel of this volume: a re-recording of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” which Michaels originally sang with Poison in 1988, and which was previously anthologized on Monster Ballads: Platinum Edition. This time around, his daughters take the lead, with Bret on guitar. [click to continue…]

Rockers all know it: behind every raunchy glam god, there’s a half-naked hottie. That was especially so back in the ’80s around piece of party-hearty real estate known as the Sunset Strip. Hollywood’s glitzy Main Street is a place of legend, and it was there that lots of unsung female heroes “lived and died for a unique group of bad-ass rocker boys.” We’re talking about such outfits as Motley Crue and Guns ‘n Roses. Our newest Rock Doc, which premieres Saturday, April 4, looks at these sexpots, strippers, sinners and saints. It’s called Do It For The Band: The Girls of the Sunset Strip.

Once upon a time there was an unprecedented decade of debauch and decadence known as the 1980s. Wall Street was booming, cocaine was the chic drug of choice, and the perversion of the Reagan era — when bigger really meant better – was personified by the excess of L.A.’s notorious Glam Metal scene. The setting was an island of metal misfits called the Sunset Strip. And the denizens who ruled were the heavy hitting hair bands and the women who loved them.

This is the story of the mistresses of metal who helped propel the likes of Tommy, Nikki, Slash, Axl, Blackie, Jani (and many others) from fledgling musicians without so much as a place to hang their top hats, to maniacal mega-superstars. We’ll give props where props are due as these boys could not have made it without the insane devotion and sacrifice of the girls who clothed, bathed, fed, housed, whored and even saved their lives.

These women, who played pivotal roles in the lives of our male superstars, reveal never before shared secrets and stories delivered with the kind of clarity that only retired strippers/showgirls turned present-day PTA moms can muster.

We’ll hear from: ADRIANA — former 7th Veil Stripper, who dated Steven Adler, and was de-crabbed by Axl Rose. She later saved Axl’s life when he OD’d the week before Appetite for Destruction was released and went on to sleep with him in the studio one day as the guys wanted sounds of live sex to mix into their album

GABY GABY HEY, also a former stripper, who kept socks, cigarettes and booze on hand for the guys who would crash at her pad. Every Friday night they’d toss her apartment furniture over the balcony into the pool below then eat her poor man’s spaghetti (noodles and butter)

PAMELA – a music video girl, saved Tommy Lee‘s life at the Flynt Mansion only to watch him get up the next morning and swill a whole bottle of Jack Daniels. Not long after, Pam became a born again Christian and prayed hard the night Nikki Sixx OD’d and watched in relief as he also “resurrected”.

Utilizing verite-style candid interviews, archival footage, photos and videos, we’ll take the viewer out of the traditional interview setting and into this visceral landscape for a look back at what was the penultimate wild ride for a generation of rockers that ultimately lives on today.

WATCH THE SHOW SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 10 PM ET

Watch Motley Crue music videos.

Watch Guns N’ Roses videos.

Watch the 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs videos.

weiland.jpgCommenting on reports in the media that Slash had all but declared Velvet Revolver lead singer Scott Weiland persona non grata, the redheaded male sylph decided to fire himself. In a statement released to the press this morning, Weiland wrote:

“After reading the comment by Duff, Matt, Dave and the illustrious ‘GUITAR HERO,’ Saul Hudson, a.k.a Slash, I find it humorous that the so called four ‘founding members’ of Velvet Revolver, better known to themselves as ‘the Project’ before I officially named the band, would decide to move on without me after I had already claimed the group dead in the water on March 20 in Glasgow. In response to Slash’s comment regarding my commitment, I have to say it is a blatant and tired excuse to cover up the truth. The truth of the matter is that the band had not gotten along on multiple levels for some time. On a musical level, there were moments of joy, inspiration, fun…at times, but let’s not forget the multiple trips to rehab every member of the band had taken (with the exception of one member, no need to mention his name). Personally speaking, I choose to look forward to the future and performing with a group of friends I have known my entire life, people who have always had my back. This also speaks to my commitment to my music and my fellow band mates in STP and to the fans who I feel would much rather watch a group of musicians who enjoy being together as opposed to a handful of discontents who at one time used to call themselves a gang.

“P.S. Don’t be fooled by veiled trickery.

“P.P.S. Good hunting lads, I think Sebastian Bach would be a fantastic choice.”

Weiland is referring, of course, to the forthcoming Stone Temple Pilots reunion, which will only pave the way for Axl Rose to join Guns N’ Roses Velvet Revolver. Good times all around!

P.S. We don’t think this is an April Fool’s joke, but then again, we’ve noticed that metalheads aren’t the best with dates.

P.P.S. Axl has not indicated any willingness to become involved with Velvet Revolver, but he wouldn’t mind becoming a Pepper.

Gnr0868 Looks like if Chinese Democracy won’t come to the people, then the people will come to Chinese Democracy. The long-delayed, much-anticipated, disaster-fraught Guns N’ Roses album — the subject of speculation by everyone from magazines to psychics — has leaked, at least in part. Though these tracks have been available on file-sharing sites for awhile now, they’ve never been kicking around in such clean versions. This makes us suspect that an official release is . . . maybe . . . on its way. Haters can hate as much as they want, but these songs actually sort of rock: “There Was a Time” and “The Blues” are epic dirges in the vein of “November Rain,” while “I.R.S.” and “Chinese Democracy” are harder numbers, the former more blues-y, the latter more White Zombie-y. Zombies are very much in fashion right now, so looks like Axl’s right on the money.

Brit2Brit Gets Jitters, Cancels Comeback Gigs
The pop star pulled the plug on a series of "secret" gigs. The world will just have to wait to see her newly toned and tightened bod!  [Entertainment Wise]

Kim Kardashian Drops Sex Tape Suit
Five million bucks helped to ease her pain. [New York Post]

Timberlake Rethinks His Career
The man who brought "SexyBack" wants to try new things. [USA Today]

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