Oh come on, Axl! The world NEEDS a little reinventing now and then...

My old Army buddy Matt from Michigan (wow, I have "old Army buddies") had a song (which has recently been "Deleted by Artist") on his MySpace profile that I really dug. It's by a punk band from Florida called Against Me!, and is titled "Reinventing Axl Rose". Rockin' song, intriguing title. And so I did a little internet research and found the following video (it clears up after a few seconds)...



Now if this story is true, then-in my opinion at least-the whole situation is incredibly cool on several different levels. Especially when you consider the lyrics...

"Reinventing Axl Rose"

We want a band that plays loud and hard every night
That doesn't care how many people are counted at the door
That would travel one million miles and ask for nothing more than a plate of food and a place to rest
They'd strike chords that cut like a knife
It would mean so much more than t-shirts or a ticket stub
They'd stop at nothing short of a massacre
Everyone would leave with the memory that there was no place else in the world
And this was where they always belonged
We would dance like no one was watching
With one fist in the air
Our arena just basements and bookstores across an underground America
With this fire we could light
Just gimme a scene where the music is free
And the beer is not the life of the party
There's no need to shit talk or impress
'Cause honesty and emotion are not looked down upon
And every promise that's made and bragged
is meant if not kept
We'd do it all because we have to, not because we know why
Beyond a gender, race, and class, we could find what really holds us back
Let's make everybody sing
That they are the beginning and ending of everything
That we all are stronger than everything they taught us that we should fear

It all comes across as just some wild, passionate, drunken rant that was scrawled on a napkin in a bar, and which was then put to music. Of course, the cynic and skeptic in me has considered the possibility that, unknown to all the sweaty, moshing kids screaming the lyrics word for word, there are corporate forces intentionally trying to orchestrate this as a "Nirvana slays the hair bands" paradigm shift, which would then make this a bunch of contrived, empty hype. And that would be assuming that the story wasn't created by someone bullshitting their friend over a beer somewhere just for kicks. Still, even though I'm knocking on the door of 3o-and I swear that I'm not getting maudlin here-I can still enjoy the stark, black and white, us-against-them, youthful idealism of a punk band yearning for a band that would travel a million miles and ask for nothing more than a plate of food and a place to rest. I mean, it's all about the music right? Of course, I'm old enough to know that it's not all so simple. If nothing else, it's still a great soundtrack to enjoying a tall, chilled glass of Guinness.