A summary of I Fear the Black Hat’s conclusions about Chevy Chase: an arrogant, assholish monster of medium talent who consciously risks nothing and refuses to take himself seriously. 

I suppose I do sort of describe him in that way in the book, yeah.  Although I wouldn’t say I’m not a fan.  I fucking loved the first three seasons of Community.

With the November release of Adler’s Back from the Dead, former Guns N’ Roses timekeeper and notorious reality TV underdog Steven Adler has transcended the milieu of improbable comebacks and released one of the finest rock albums of 2012. At the year’s outset, few would have registered surprise that a member of the classic Guns lineup would record one of 2012’s most bracing releases; it’s just that nobody would have bet on Steven.

One of the runaway cable hits in recent years has been VH1’s That Metal Show, a production cobbled together with the barest of bones, featuring three regular guys from Jersey (host Eddie Trunk and comedians Don Jamieson and Jim Florentine), sitting around and talking about hard rock and heavy metal. Were it not for the the guys’ unmitigated passion for metal, their profane sincerity and the massive, eye-watering doses of ball-busting (they are from Jersey, after all), the show might have never left the ground. The trio’s lack of pretense and utter likeability however, have inspired the show’s evolution from a late-night placeholder to a bona fide cultural epicenter for hard rock and heavy metal fans across the globe.

Guns N’ Roses mercurial frontman Axl Rose has pulled the ultimate deke on the music industry–he has decided to take a pass on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Specifically, he has declared that he will not be attending this weekend’s induction ceremony, and via a letter to the RRHOF, he is requesting that he not be inducted in absentia.

Unfortunately, this announcement will be confused as news. People will come at him from all sides, triumphantly pointing out the Orca-sized holes in his arguments and decrying his ongoing megalomaniacal delusions. This is simply pointing out the obvious with a sense of discovery. In fact, such attention will only buttress Axl’s view of himself as a tragically-misunderstood, well-meaning, regular guy, constantly fending off the unprovoked attacks of the media and his former bandmates (the ones who made the music that he sings).

There is no news here.

With his autobiography, It’s So Easy (and other lies), crawling up the New York Times Bestseller list and a book tour in support of that release unfolding as we speak, Duff McKagan’s dance card is pretty full. He is first heading to the UK, where he will tour with his band Loaded while managing a string of appearances in support of his book. Aggressively dodging all opportunities for rest or relaxation, he is then touring South America with Seattle’s Alice in Chains before jetting over to Germany to play some dates with Motörhead.

But wait—there’s more.

It is easier to figure out cold fusion than it is to discuss rock and roll journalism without mentioning Mick Wall. He is to music writing what Keith Richards is to the guitar — he didn’t invent it, but he sure as hell made it his own.

Mick Wall began his career writing for a weekly music paper in the late Seventies and a few years later he jumped into a grass roots heavy metal magazine called Kerrang!. He quickly became its most popular writer and now thirty years later, Kerrang! is the biggest music periodical in circulation in the UK, with its own television and radio stations, branded tours, and massive annual awards ceremony.

Like Kerrang!, Mick Wall has also exploded as a force in the arena of rock journalism. He has penned nearly twenty music biographies, tackling a diverse range of subjects from immortal record producer John Peel to the howling tornado that is Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose. Rose was so unsettled by Wall’s book that he called him out by name in the song, “Get in the Ring,” from the Use Your Illusion II album.

“Nevermind will forever be remembered as a vehicle for ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ and its subversive effect on mainstream culture. It’s periodically brilliant, but half of the material on Nevermind is filler.”

-Chuck Klosterman

Okay. So. Part III.

One rule I set out for myself on my quest to vindicate Cobain from the evil clutches of Klosterman: I will not use the “you had to be there” argument to justify any of my feelings for Nevermind. Yes, much of the greatness of Nevermind lies in its social context, and especially its relationship to music that came before it like The Youngbloods, Aerosmith, Husker Du and so many more. But there is enough musical greatness within its contents not to need to resort to arguments relating to Nevermind’s “subversive effect on mainstream culture.” This is not a post about culture. It’s a reassessment of a great album 20 years later to see–with all of that other stuff out of the way–how great it really is, especially in relation to Appetite for Destruction, which I examined at length in Part II.

Sometime during the summer I turned thirteen, my neighbor, who was about three years older, began wearing corduroy pants with little flying ducks embroidered on them.

When a friend strikes out in a bold new direction like this, it can be a scary ordeal for everyone around him.  It can also present a number of opportunities.  Realizing that the onset of the mallard-inspired cords would likely usher in the obsolescence of all things non-preppy, I petitioned for and became the grateful beneficiary of a number of his now-unwanted possessions.  Specifically, his copy of The Grateful Dead’s American Beauty.  And most importantly, his copy of the Jim Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugarman.

My life hasn’t been the same since.

“[Appetite for Destruction] always comes across as tour de force and a classic rock masterpiece, while Nevermind will forever be remembered as a vehicle for ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ and its subversive effect on mainstream culture. It’s periodically brilliant, but half of the material on Nevermind is filler.”

-Chuck Klosterman, Fargo Rock City

Okay. So. Part II.

(For those of you not up to speed, this post is Part II of a series debunking the current trend in rock lit to laud Axl Rose at the expense of Kurt Cobain, and reassessing Appetite for Destruction and Nevermind about 20 years after their debuts. If you want to start at the beginning, Part I, which deals directly with the criticisms of Steve Almond and Chuck Klosterman, is here.)

Tommy Stinson, former bass player of the Replacements and also Axl Rose’s bass player-for-hire, once told reporters that Axl Rose is much easier to work with than Replacements’ lead singer Paul Westerberg, to which Westerberg’s responded, “Wouldn’t Van Gogh be more difficult than Norman Rockwell?”

I’m reminded of this dig whenever I see more evidence of what’s becoming a decade-long trend in rock lit to laud Axl Rose at the expense of Kurt Cobain.

Two of my favs, Steve Almond and Chuck Klosterman, are guilty of this charge.