Baroness bus crashes; also, lottery winner expresses desire to reunite Guns N Roses

Firstly, the shitty news: Baroness’ tour bus came off a road near Bath today. As I understand it weather and driving conditions were not favourable, resulting in the bus going down a 30 foot drop. It would appear that the band have had a lucky escape, however – there are reports of two individuals with multiple fractures, with the rest having minor injuries. Understandably the remainder of their tour has been cancelled. All of us at STS send our best wishes to Baroness and hope that they get back on their feet as individuals and as a band in double-quick time.

I also take this opportunity to thoroughly recommend that you all look into Baroness’ music - their latest double album is quite amazing, and I am kicking myself right now for not having listened to it a long time ago. There’s psych, stoner, doom, traditional hard rock, all sorts knocking about, all marked with the unique joie de vivre that Baroness bring to their music.

A full review of Yellow and Green will follow in due course.

UPDATE

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From that tragedy, we move on to comedy – Guns N Roses. Those of you who read my…commentary on the Axl v. everyone fracas over the induction of GnR into the Rock n Roll hall of fame will know I have no time for the current farcical line-up, never mind Axl himself. He has dragged the good name of Guns N Roses through the mud, into the grave and has now resurrected the corpse with a mixture of hot air and copious amounts of money. GnR is now a band of mercenaries, guns for hire – do you think anyone would work with Axl if there wasn’t money to be made there?

Since we speak of money, turns out a chap in the UK who recently won an absolute fuckload on the Euro Millions recently is keen to invest some of that money in bringing back the Appetite-era line-up of Guns N Roses. You know, the good line up. I dearly hope that this does not come to pass – it will just serve to line Axl’s pockets even more and I would hate to see Slash lower himself to working with Axl again. There would be no artistic integrity about the reunion, just a fug of PR and legalese.

It’ll never happen, of course – Axl is too fond of himself to let anyone else share his limelight, paycheque, burger van and hair stylist. Slash and the boys should just respectfully laugh this one off and move on with their careers, which, while not being as lucrative as GnR are now, have much more integrity and musical merit.

As a final note, GnR have just announced a residency at a Las Vegas casino. Words fail me.

A full review of Chinese Democracy will not follow in due course.