Everything's comin' up Axl Rose

And from the "hell freezes over department," we find this tidbit. Nothing I read about this album surprises me. Hell, I even almost believed this April Fools' review in Spin Magazine last month. The bottom line is, Axl Rose is crazy. End of story.

Next question. Yes? What did I do this weekend? Well, I'm glad you asked. On Friday, I went to a wedding. My friends from high school and college, Greg and Kirsten, got married in Oak Park in the late afternoon, and we proceeded to head downtown to Spiaggia (on North Michigan Avenue) for the reception. A great time was had by many, and there were a bunch of people in from out of town to celebrate.

Saturday night, after a brutal day of teaching, I headed out to Oak Park again to hang out at Greg's parents' house, the site of many, many nights of craziness in college. Greg's parents are moving this year, so there was some anticipatory nostalgia going on. After staying up way too late again, Sunday saw some breakfast with friends from out of town, and some rocking and rolling with the boys from Stylus.

It looks like I'll be starting to play with Stylus as a second guitarist now and then. They are a great group of guys and the music is spectacular. Dave, the drummer, is the engineer who recorded both our EP and full-length. They asked me to add some guitar work to their upcoming record, and we've been getting together every now and then to fashion a set on which I can play live. Good times.

BRB gets its usual rehearsals this week, which is a good thing. We're being interviewed this morning for a profile in a suburban paper, and we also have a fairly important meeting with our manager to discuss the next six months and how they are to unfold. Lots to think over, lots to clarify, and lots to do.

Finally, I've been exploring the idea of recording a solo acoustic album or EP in the next few months. I have a bunch of songs that seem to fit the solo acoustic format rather than a band format, and I may take a shot at doing a quick and dirty weekend recording of a bunch of them, just to see if I can get something I like enough to put out.

Of course, it may not be as good as Chinese Democracy, but... what i-, uh, will be?

jbg