FROM THE “SHOULDA SEEN THIS COMING” FILES

Someday, with the benefit of lots and lots of therapy, I hope to be able to explain why I let Axl Rose abuse me the way he abuses his girlfriends. Maybe it’s because, metal-wise at least, he was my first love; but no matter how many times he lets me down, I’m always willing to forgive him when he comes crawling back, promising he’ll never do it again. “You just don’t know him like I do,” I tell people. And then fucker turns around and gives me another black eye.

So: after previously announcing that they would delay their summer tour due (allegedly) to a wrist injury suffered by bassist Tommy Stinson, the band has now announced that their entire summer tour is cancelled. I guess things were just going too smoothly: last year’s tour was a relative success, it seemed like the band might finally be getting to release their long awaited, at this point almost mythical masterpiece Chinese Democracy, and now… nothing.

If the cancellation turns out to be because Axl needed some time to actually finish the disc, than obviously, this will be great. But really, at this point, it’s pretty much impossible for even his most die-hard fans (such as myself) to defend the guy; this goes beyond “bad luck.” This is clearly sheer lunacy. And while I used to say that I didn’t want the album to ever leak in its entirety so I could enjoy the simple pleasure of purchasing it, taking it home, and listening to it all the way through, hearing most of it for the first time then and there- y’know, the way we used to listen to new albums by bands we loved, before MySpace and mp3s and bit torrent sites- but now, I just wanna hear the fucking thing (especially since what we have heard leads me to believe that it’s actually pretty good). So, whomever has been responsible for the leaks thus far: just give us the whole damn album already.

-AR