Week In Rock

Welcome, readers, to round two of the Jack White/Billy Childish shit-talking extravaganza! Today, I am pleased to offer to you Childish’s response to the salvos launched at him by White last week, wherein Jack accused Billy of plagiarism and bitterness. Childish wasted little time in writing an open letter to the White Stripes yowler/guitarist. "Though I have undoubtedly angered Jack White,” he said, “I think it’s a bit nasty of him to accuse me of plagiarism merely because his former admiration of my work was not reciprocated." Ouch! But Childish had more to say, and pulled no punches during the verbal assault. He continued: "It all smacks of jealousy to me. I have a bigger collection of hats, a better moustache, a more blistering guitar sound and a fully developed sense of humor. The only thing I can’t understand is why I’m not rich. Yours sincerely, Billy Childish." Ouch! Ouch! Billy closed his letter with a final fuck you in fine form. "P.S. I always stay well within the music industries recommended guidelines of never plagiarizing more than 50 percent of my material. But no matter who my influences may be, I would never stoop so low as to rip off Led Zeppelin.

"P.P.S I hope I’ve gone and offended Led Zeppelin now." Top that, White! While the Stripes frontman may be hard-pressed to retaliate in form, his attempt (regardless of its success) ought to be interesting. So keep your ears open; in a few days Jackie will probably have some old-timey, anti-Childish rant on his page.

It’s been a bad couple of months for Scott Stapp. First, he gets arrested at the airport and his new wife has to bail him out, and then Stapp sex tapes surface online. Has Creed, even though they’ve broken up, ever seemed so bogus before? I didn’t think so. As if all this wasn’t enough, both the woman involved in the tape and Kid Rock, who was also featured in it, are filing suit against Stapp, seeking damages for emotional stress. The woman claims that the singer is liable for his failure to prevent the tape from being leaked, since he reportedly kept it after its 1999 creation. Rock is also seeking an injunction to prevent the tape’s sale or distribution in any form, which is probably a bad idea for him. I mean, really, when was the last time you heard Kid Rock? Or Scott Stapp for that matter? These two should be milking this for all it’s worth, seeing as how a well placed sex tape can catapult shitty celebrities to mega-stardom. Although I don’t know who would even want to watch this tape –

You probably wonder why I keep writing about Guns N’ Roses. They had one good record a long time ago, but in the days of Axl’s cornrows, oversized jerseys and legal wranglings, what kind of relevance do they have? Well, I have two words for you: Green River. Before bassist Duff McKagan joined the Guns N’ Roses, he was in a little band called Green River. Back in the late ’80s, this band released a couple of records of pure-genius trash rock that went on to be hailed as the first examples of grunge. When they broke up due to creative differences (i.e. too metal-y) two of their members formed Mudhoney, one of the greatest rock bands ever, and Duff found his way to Guns N’ Roses. But don’t like Green River for the Grunge History or G N’R factors. Like them because they put out some awesome songs.

But moving on to Roses-related news, a new lawsuit has come up between Axl and his former bandmates Slash and Duff over Rose’s "ownership of his own creative works," or in other words his ability to make money off of them without having the other two leeching a percentage. Slash, although previously saying that he’d always been supportive" of Axl’s continued musical career, and McKagan had no comment on the issue. While the belated Chinese Democracy album is still due out this year, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether or not this will throw a wrench into the proceedings. But even if it does, there’s still all of that Green River to check out.