Guns N' Roses returns to The Jungle

In his 22 years with Guns N' Roses, keyboardist Dizzy Reed often is the overlooked observer in the band's headline-grabbing history.

Since joining GNR in 1990 during sessions for what would become the albums “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II,” Reed has been privy to the inner workings of a band defined both by its arena-sized hits such as “November Rain” and ”Paradise City” as well as its rotating lineup, unpredictable live shows and enigmatic frontman Axl Rose.

When Guns N' Roses arrives at The Fillmore Silver Spring on Thursday night, it will continue what Reed describes as the “annex” of their first string of shows in five years in the United States.
In step with “the greatest band I've ever been in as far as lineup,” Reed spoke with The Gazette about the long-awaited 2008 album “Chinese Democracy,” GNR's future and its upcoming induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

A&E: Why did it take five years for the band to get to the states?

DR: That's a good question. I think logistically, I don't really know. I don't have much to do with that. I think at some point I probably said to myself, “Hey man, how come we haven't played the states?” I guess the timing wasn't right as far as production or whatnot. Maybe they weren't ready, I don't know. But I got to say this: I can't think of any show where the people weren't really appreciative and happy that we were there and getting into it and getting into the songs from “Chinese Democracy,” as well as the older songs and that's a great feeling for everybody.
                             
A&E: Speaking of “Chinese Democracy,” that was the first time you received songwriting credits. How has your role in the band evolved over time?

DR: Since I came on, I think I've always added what I could creatively. I guess when “Use Your Illusions” was being recorded, all that stuff had already been written but I just added whatever I could creatively to make the songs better or, at least, in my opinion, make them better. You have to do something that adds to the song and nothing that takes away or clutters things up. There's a fine line. From the very beginning I've just been chucking ideas into the hat and some of them stick, so that's good. A lot of people think they can write songs and not everybody can. And I don't claim to be a great songwriter, but that's what I do when I'm not playing live. I work on songs and ... now everyone ... in their own right, is somewhat of an accomplished [songwriter]. Everyone's going to be adding ideas. Part of the process is sort of having the whole band sort of add to it if they can. That's what makes it a band makes it a band effort and at the end of the day, if you got a great song and Axl sings it, it's Guns N' Roses at that point to me.

A&E: Does Axl lead the charge when in the studio?

DR: For some songs, sure, but I know if we spend time and put together cool ideas and send it his way, and it's cool, he appreciates it. So some things go a little bit further, maybe. And some things don't, you know? Everyone brings things in, it just depends. At the end of the day, he's going to sing it, so it's got to flow the way he wants it to and the way he feels comfortable and the way he does put what he puts on it.

A&E: What was it like recording and working on “Chinese Democracy” compared to the 1993 covers album “The Spaghetti Incident?”?

DR: A lot of the basics for that record were actually tracked when we tracked “Use Your Illusions,” and then we added some things later and then sort of did overdubs and whatnot back in ‘93, I think, and put it out. And then shortly thereafter ... we started writing more songs and that was sort of the intro to the beginning of the intro to the writing of “Chinese Democracy.” So I don't think any other album would compare to the process that went into putting things together for “Chinese Democracy” for this band or any other band. It's funny you would mention that. That's the entire gamut right there as far as recording projects.

A&E: It just seems like “Chinese Democracy” was such a meticulous effort that took a long time.

DR: From a production standpoint, a lot went into it. There's orchestration, there's incredible programming and cool keyboard parts and lots of amazing guitar solos, whereas “Spaghetti Incident?” was pretty much a barebones band. It's funny, a lot of people forget about that record but I always thought it was pretty cool.

A&E: I heard you guys are working on new material.

DR: I keep hearing that, so I'm going to go along with that and say, “Yeah.”

A&E: Is that news to you?

DR: No, no. There's been talk. I know that [guitarist] DJ [Ashba] and Axl have been kicking back and forth some stuff and we talked about it a little bit, but I've heard that there's plans... to sit down at some point in time ...and start working some stuff up. So if that happens, great. I don't want to jinx it though.

A&E: The band is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. Do you feel like it has anything else left to prove?

DR: Myself, personally, I'm always going to feel like I have something to prove. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame certainly isn't the end of the line. I think it's a great thing. It's really cool for all the people who have supported the band over the years. And I try not to think about it because I don't want to get too freaked out, but just focus on the shows coming up. And when that day comes and gets closer, then I'll start thinking about it a little more.

Photos by Katarina Benzova

More than five cents: Adam Carolla at The Fillmore Silver Spring

Catch Adam Carolla if you can. For a diehard sports fan who spends months out of the year traveling to do standup, it makes sense the always outspoken podcast host also is a vintage racecar driver. When he’s not recording “The Adam Carolla Show” in its Glendale, Calif., studio, Carolla spends his time fixing up old Datsuns, including one owned by the late Paul Newman’s racing partner, for competition.

“The Adam Carolla Show” has taken the man most known for co-hosting “Loveline” and “The Man Show” to new heights — even entering the Guinness Book of World Records as the most downloaded podcast in May 2011. Free of FCC regulations, Carolla improvises through his 90-minute shows, dishing on everything from news to the trials and tribulations of fatherhood. Whether it is about a cast member of “The Jersey Shore” or hotel remote controllers, Carolla has something to say.

The off-the-cuff, unrestrained nature of the show seems like the verbal equivalent of his need to go more than 100 miles per hour on straightaways on tracks such as Laguna Seca.

“I have fun doing it,” Carolla says.”But there’s no cops on the racetrack, which makes it a lot easier.”

While figuring out how to best demount a tire in his shop, Carolla spoke with The Gazette about his two upcoming sets at The Fillmore Silver Spring on Saturday and his future plans for standup.

A&E: As you know this is for the Fillmore show coming up, it’s a new venue in the area.

AC: Yeah, I didn’t know it was new, though.

A&E: It opened up in September. It’s nice. It has the whole red-room look and chandeliers.

AC: That’s good because it’s in my rider [that] I don’t play rooms without ornate lighting.

A&E: I’m sure that’s important when doing standup.

AC: It can’t be done. Listen, I don’t care if you’re Lenny Bruce or Chris Rock, you can’t be funny without super ornate lighting.

A&E: What’s the secret behind ornate lighting?

AC: I’d tell you, but I’d be breaking a certain code amongst comedians.

A&E: When did you get into standup?

AC: I guess I got into it a couple years ago and it sort of seemed like a good way to make money. And honestly at the beginning, I did it more to support the podcast and myself than I did it it was more out of necessity than out of love. There’s more than one answer. One, it’s not like really working. Going to a place, having people applaud and laugh and signing a few autographs after work, it didn’t feel like work to me. The travel part’s a little pain in the [expletive], but you actually get used to that so in an economy when people are looking to find jobs, having this one job of doing standup, it’s hard to complain about. But like I said initially, it was more just to subsidize the podcast, which wasn’t really pulling its own weight or paying for itself. Now the podcast has turned into its business and is doing nicely so the standup will probably be reevaluated a little bit in 2012. There’s that thing of, ‘Hey it’s nice to come out.’ I can go to Burbank Airport out there, hop on a plane and be in Seattle in two hours, sell out the Moore Theatre with 1,900 seats and be back home the next morning with a bunch of cash in my pocket. That’s an easy one. Going to Adison, Texas, and playing a strip mall and doing six shows in the three days, that’s a pain in the [expletive]. I think what we’ll probably do in 2012 is kind of pick and choose the events and the venues and the towns that seem like they fit in nicely with the schedule and basically do what you do when you don’t need to do it.

A&E: For a lot of people, it takes years to develop a style. Does that mean when you started doing standup you just jumped in without knowing how to do it?

AC: Well, yes and no. A couple things that I had going for me.

A&E: You’re no stranger to speaking in public, but standup is sort of its own beast.

AC: It is. But the good news is there’s many different types of standup now. There used to just be for a 90-minute show, [it] would take guys 10 years to put together 90 minutes worth of material, to hone 90 minutes worth of material. My agent handles Jon Stewart and people like that, and when I told him I wanted to start doing these 90-minute standup shows, he said… my agent was saying, “You just can’t walk out on stage and do 90 minutes, it takes years to develop that.” And I, thankfully, had had the experience of doing many college dates with Dr. Drew [of “Loveline”] back in the day, and doing lots of time in front of lots of people on stage — and at least I had that. And my standup is a little bit different in that I go up there and do sort of a PowerPoint presentation of complaining. I do a lot of improv and I do a lot of mixing and matching and some storytelling and that kind of stuff.

A&E: How do you prepare for your standup versus what you do with the podcast?

AC: It used to be much more cut and dried, and I know that maybe because of the Internet or Janeane Garofalo or both, there’s alternatives. For me, I would not even — wouldn’t even call [it standup]. What you’re getting is an evening with Adam Carolla. It’s not so much a 90-minute standup show. It’s some storytelling some motivational speaking, some improv, some jokes, some standup, some visual. I guess a sort of a one-man play, one-man show, but again, more of an evening with me rather than 90 minutes of me.

A&E: The life and times.

AC: Sure, right. I come up there with my stovepipe hat and talk about what it was like to free the slaves.

Photo courtesy ACE Broadcasting

Blizzard of Beats: Winter Classic Tour storms the Fillmore

Justin Blau is a college student and electronic music producer.

Weekdays, Justin Blau, 20, is a finance major at Washington University in St. Louis. Fresh off a summer internship with Credit Suisse, he plans to graduate in 18 months by taking on a course load ranging from business to poetry classes.

But on weekends, Blau is 3LAU, an up-and-coming house DJ who during the last seven months has found his way off campus and onto stages in cities from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.
“I was getting ready to apply for internships this summer,” Blau says. “Now I’m getting ready to think about who I’m touring with.”

On Saturday, Blau will come to the Fillmore Silver Spring as part of The Winter Classic Tour. He shares the bill with producer Paper Diamond and live electronic trio Savoy.

A musician for most of his life, Blau first became interested in electronic music while visiting Sweden in the summer of 2010.

“It was my first exposure to real dance music and Euro dance music,” he says. “And [I thought] ‘Oh my god, this is amazing.’”

Blau returned to school in the fall, experimenting whenever he could with mashing together bits of pop songs from singers like Katy Perry over driving, synth-laden beats. With his first track “Children E.T.” that February, a friend recommended he post or submit them to college blogs. Blau cites the blogs as a major driver of his music, his Facebook page growing from 100 “Likes” seven months ago to more than 21,000 currently.

Still, it would be during the three weeks prior to his summer internship that Blau began working in earnest on the material that would result in his free-to-download album “Dance Floor Filth.”

To test his efforts, Blau would frequent the social DJ website Turntable.Fm. The site allows users to upload and play songs to others in the same chat room. What was once Blau’s testing grounds also became a major networking opportunity as it was through Turntable that he familiarized himself with other producers and even landed a sponsorship with Sol Republic Headphones.
                           
“I would say Turntable has been, next to all the blogs, the other biggest help that I’ve had all the way, and the community is pretty close-knit and the regulars know who each other are. I’m on there quite often debuting new stuff and asking for feedback,” Blau says.

One of the connections Blau made through Turntable.fm hooked him up with singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. Blau will remix her song “Ghost” from her upcoming January release “Human Again.” He considers his work with Michelson indicative of his efforts to focus on producing original material. Two more original tracks are in the works.

“This mash up thing was always kind of a gate. and it was the easiest way for me to get any form of notoriety,” Blau says. “That was always the plan. It was never in the cards that I remain a mash up artist because at the end of the day, I like making music.”

The life of a jet-setting DJ may not seem compatible with that of a college student, but Blau says his professors understand his extracurricular activity. In fact, one of his classes next year, “Economics of Entertainment,” will put a scholarly perspective on his burgeoning career.

“[My professor] agreed that I could do some form of combined research on my career as a DJ and more industry-specific work and research and kind of combine it all into a research project,” he says.

Blau will share the stage with the electronic trio Savoy. The group is known for its high-energy live show, which features two DJs and a live drummer.

Alex Botwin performs under the name Paper Diamond.

The lineup is rounded out by artist Paper Diamond, whose real name is Alex Botwin. Botwin is a more seasoned road warrior than Blau and the gear he takes along when he travels has only become lighter as Botwin controls his shows via an iPad. Running through a series of programs including TouchOSC, Botwin uses the Apple device because he can dissect each song during his performance from a drum beat to individual effects. This allows him to craft unique sets based on the crowd’s reactions instead of spending time beforehand rearranging his shows.

“Its legitimately like ‘OK, I’m going to pick the first song, see what the people are vibing on that night,’”  Botwin says. “And then it’s like a choose-your-own-adventure book or something. I just go from there. It makes it enjoyable for me because I don’t do the same thing every night.”

Botwin’s Paper Diamond project debuted in a string of New Year’s Eve shows featuring acts like Bassnectar. Shortly after, Botwin released his first EP “Levitate” through the Pretty Lights Music Label and his record label, Elm&Oak. Under its banner name, which stands for Exclusive Limited Merchandise and One of A Kind, the company acts as a record label, boutique and design firm. Botwin runs the company with partner Berk Gibbs.

Botwin began producing independently in 2010 under the name Alex B. after parting ways with his live electronic band Pnuma, which also toured under the name Pnuma Trio. Botwin says the split was amicable, citing the desire to find a new artistic venture and sound as the reason for leaving.

“Honestly, the change has been the best. Everyone is super happy and musically doing what they want to do,” Botwin says. “We’re not closed off to playing more shows [as Pnuma].”

As Alex B., Botwin released the down tempo album “Moments” in April 2010. With his independent release out of the way, Botwin once again decided it was time to rebrand himself, this time as Paper Diamond.
                           
Originally, he says he wanted to change his name so people would be more willing to accept his move into a
style that touches on more up-tempo sounds with elements of electro, hip-hop and dubstep.

“I think that people come to realize that at my shows, they’ll get a nice barrage of things,” he says.

Botwin debuted his first Paper Diamond release, the 8-track “Levitate” EP, in January. The follow up will be another 8-track EP titled “Paragon,” which, he says, is almost complete. The album’s name is a play on both the word for the perfect diamond as well as paragon’s standard definition as a model of excellence.
“Even though I’ve been able to make hundreds of songs over the past period, these are the favorites that I’m feeling right now, so it’s my personal favorite and my best of the best,” Botwin says of the upcoming release.

The album will also be free-for-download, which Botwin says is what the Paper Diamond project, down to its name, is about: getting the music out there.

“If you have a piece of paper and you’re folding it into a diamond, whether it’s simple or complex, it’s your form of self-expression and it’s your art,” Botwin says. “So for me, making music is like taking nothing and turning it into something, and whether that be simple or complex, it’s my form of self-expression.”

Photos courtesy Paper Diamond; Just Blau

The Fun in Funky: Primus plays The Fillmore Silver Spring

Love it or hate it, “Green Naugahyde,” funk rock band Primus’ first album in more than a decade, is a self-produced effort bearing only the touches of its machine gun-thumbed bassist and singer Les Claypool, guitarist Larry “Ler” LaLonde and drummer Jay Lane.

The September release and the tour that follows, including a stop at the Fillmore Silver Spring on Saturday, finds the band in a very different mindset from when they recorded their last record, 1999’s “Antipop.”

After constant touring and five studio albums starting with “Frizzle Fry” in 1990, the San Francisco Bay-area band was feeling fried by the end of the decade. Looking for a new approach, LaLonde says Primus broke from their tradition of self-producing albums with “Antipop.”

“From the beginning, we had record companies and people telling us, ‘Oh, you should use a producer,’ and we were always like, ‘Well, that’s not the way we work,’” LaLonde says. “That [‘Antipop’] was the one where we were like, ‘Oh, we’ll finally try this producer idea,’ but we kind of got away with it by saying, ‘What if we work on each song with a different person?’ That way if it doesn’t work out with somebody it’s only one song. So that whole thing, it was really crazy. We had been touring for so long and everything was starting to go in different directions a bit. So it wasn’t the greatest time for the band.”

Following a tour for “Antipop,” the band announced a hiatus and its members went their separate ways. LaLonde and then-drummer Bryan “Brain” Mantia continued to work together, making avant-garde music under the name No Forcefield. LaLonde would later tour with System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian.

Claypool went on to explore the jam band scene, cutting albums with his group Colonel Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade among others. He also worked in two super groups, one with Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio and Stewart Copeland of the Police called Oysterhead and the other with Mantia, guitarist Buckethead and Parliament Funkadelic co-founder and keyboardist Bernie Worrell.

Primus would conduct a few more tours and some festival appearances throughout the decade, but Claypool later went on record saying that the shows were more nostalgic than anything else. With the five-track EP “Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People” in 2003, fans heard the last batch of new material from the band before a long silence. Still, LaLonde believed the band had not fully run its course.

“I had always hoped it was not totally done because when I was sitting around writing songs, nine out of 10 times, the things I write, I’m like, ‘That would be perfect for Primus. I need Les to finish this one off and make it cool,’” LaLonde says. “I’m sure I probably thought it was never totally done.”

Rested and reenergized, things started heating up for Primus once more in 2010. Seeing if the spark was still there, the group tested the waters and jammed in February of that year.

“After our first rehearsal,” LaLonde says. “It was the same day as the Super Bowl, probably the one before last, so that was the day that we jammed and were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’”

Filling in on drums in the latest Primus lineup is Jay Lane. Before working with Grateful Dead offshoot RatDog in the 1990s, Lane was one of Primus’ first drummers when the band got its start in California in the 1980s. He left Primus to pursue another project and was replaced by longtime drummer Tim “Herb” Alexander shortly before the group’s 1989 live album and demo “Suck on This” was released.

But ties were not cut with the Primus camp. Lane later collaborated with Claypool on his 1996 solo album and Sausage’s 1994 album “Riddles Are Abound Tonight,” a band featuring the 1988 lineup of Primus including guitarist Todd Huth.

LaLonde says Lane was a natural fit for Primus’ current incarnation.

“It was something we always wanted to try and see what it would be like to have Jay back in the band,” LaLonde says. “And he’s like the coolest, funnest guy too.”

With the lineup cemented, Primus began touring once again, moving through the country with its mini-festival The Oddity Faire in 2010. By November, the group entered Claypool’s Rancho Relaxo studio in California to begin recording what became “Green Naugahyde.”
                           
LaLonde says they took their time recording the new album and finished in March. With Lane’s drumming anchoring “Green Naugahyde,” LaLonde says it has hints of the group’s first album “Frizzle Fry.” Primus’ quirky rhythms, biting lyrics and oddball atmosphere have not been lost, but there is an evolution in the music as well. Claypool’s solo experiments with jam sensibilities, squishy effects pedals and dead-panned choruses also bleed through on tracks like their single “Tragedy’s a’ Comin’” and “HOINFODAMAN.”

LaLonde says some of the tracks on “Green Naugahyde” — including “Moron TV” and “Eternal Consumption Engine” — had been saved for quite some time.

“I think I’ve been trying to get [‘Eternal Consumption Engine’] on a couple of Primus records before,” LaLonde says. “It was something that me and Les kind of goofed around with before. We just never really got around to finishing it off, but this time around, I kind of threw it in there as one of the first things, so it would maybe get finished.”

Since “Antipop,” the landscape of the industry has changed, and LaLonde says he is unsure if album sales will serve as a barometer for the band’s success as they once did. On their recent tour, he has seen Primus’ fan base continue to thrive and, for now, it’s nice just being back at square one.

“That’s sort of how we started, too,” LaLonde says. “It wasn’t about, ‘Hey, how many of these can we sell?’ or, ‘How much money can we make?’ We just figured make the best stuff and the rest will come.”

Show is sold out.

Photos by Tod Brilliant