Bowsy’s An (Axl) Rose by any Other Name

File photo of Bowsy - a brown and white bear seated at a table beside a laptop.

by Bowsy the Bear

From 2006, Bowsy chimes in on the contraversial Matchstick Cats G’N’R New Tracks Specials, found here.

So here’s how it went down.

As far as I can ascertain using my limited investigative powers as an inanimate bear, somebody posted in a couple of GNR forums on the Internet on Saturday, declaring that this site would shortly be presenting the two “Matchstick Cats GNR brand new tracks specials”.

Unfortunately due to an oversight the chosen sites turned out not to be websites devoted to enthusiasts of the Great Northern Railways, but in fact were fan sites of the rock band “Guns’n’Roses”.

By late afternoon the announcement was quoted in dedicated sections of at least two major websites that devote themselves to proving or debunking rumours. The rumour spread like wildfire through that wonderful network of humans known as the World Wide Web. Soon the world’s rock fans were converging in their 1200s on this humble corner of the Internet, the more vocal among them making their disappointment felt very articulately, although unfortunately not always in English, in the guestbook

Apparently, the expected normal release process for new music nowadays is through tiny cat comic websites run off a laptop in Ireland. My god, the music industry has changed. In my day, you had to buy a bulky scratchy old gramophone record, which you ordered by telegram from Amazon.com, then collected from their store a couple of weeks later.

Not that I have much interest in this hard rock stuff, you understand. Personally, I much prefer to relax with a copy of Hayden’s trumpet concerto in D minor. But you have to give the young kids what they want. And I have to admit, I do have a soft spot for W’axl Rose, ever since he stood on stage with his colleague Elton John and gave a beautiful rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, with a tear in his eye and a heavy heart at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert.

Little wonder that such a mind could also give us the operatic emotion of the wedding death scene in the November Rain video. It is a work of such devastating profundity that I invariably piss my fur while viewing it.

The audience is left in tears as the best man, played (ironically, given the urinatical effect) by “Slash”, unable to participate in the ceremony because of height restrictions and not realising that he could just take off his top hat, is left outside the chapel with nothing to entertain himself but his trusty old guitar.

Sadly, it has been some time since G’N’F’N’R have released any new material, and many of the original members have dispersed to occupy themselves elsewhere.

Hence the need for websites like this to fill the void with our Matchstick Cats Brand New Tracks Specials. Think of us as a sort of cover band, without any members, musicianship skills, or intention of releasing anything in the immediate fut-

-Never mind.

Anyhoo, the upshot of it all is that it is almost as if this whole thing is an illusion of some kind. And if there’s one thing that our heroes have taught us, it is that you must “Use your illusion” to the full extent of it’s capabilities.

Personally my favourite involves pulling a top hat out of a rabbit’s ass, then stuffing it back in again. Everybody knows of course that it’s not a real hat. But who’s going to tell the rabbit that? And is it going to care? Rabbits are not the type who turn down the possibility of having something stuffed up them, and who can blame them. They live a horrible life, cooped up in their little rabbit ghettos with the several hundred children running around and causing all sorts of rumpus.