Eric Cantona

God I'm excited for this. For all the flaws GN'R has, there is not a single other artist that could keep me by my toes waiting for a single song which we've discussed for so many years yet concretely know so little about.

Bring on The f'n General (and Monsterss!!!!)

There's some serious Mandela effect shit going on here

5 minutes ago, estrangedtwat said:

The question is...what are the real titles?  How do we know that song at the party was The General?  Maybe that was Soul Monster, and SOG got changed into The General?  Until something official comes out, how can we know?

I'm going by memory, but it's based around the orchestral intro played before shows between 2006-2011, which GN'R confirmed as being The General. I just checked both the tempo and keys of the phone recording and the concert intro, and they match. (67bpm and D minor).

9 minutes ago, estrangedtwat said:

What is everyone using as a source, anyway?  I have a two minute long clip of the song played at the party and you can barely hear shit.  It's mostly people talking.

 

I must have lost Evader's re-creation.  All I have is a 7 second clip that has clicks on it.  It kinda sucks.  How long is the "Evader version?"

You can make out a lot in the phone recording imo, except for the lyrics. The small guitar solo is crystal clear in the recording as well.

I have a 2:30 minute long version of Evader's remake, with no clicks or anything. Although I have seen many different versions around, a version without vocals and a longer version (I think it's just a looped recording)

I saw some pages back that ''The General = State of Grace?'' doubt was brewing again. I wrote down some simple sheet music to show how they are two completely different tunes.

State of Grace intro:

The General (orchestral middle part deciphered from both the 2010 phone recording and Evader's remake):

They definitely share similarities in that they have a similar tempo (SoG is in 76bpm and The General in 67bpm) and feature a prominent semitone interval. But that's pretty much where the similarities end.

These two songs are in completely different keys, State of Grace being in F# minor and The General being in D minor, while also having completely different rhythmic structures.

It's just a tiring discussion to read through and I hope this can in some way quell the doubt that these songs are in any way the same.

Missing my dog today. He passed away a little over three years ago, I heard about it fifteen minutes before our band was supposed to be on stage.

He was a fun dog, fat yet stupidly athletic. One of my favourite tunes of my own is about him, I like to sing it for myself and reminisce about my old pal.

Being an early 2000s kid, Chinese Democracy was my proper introduction to GN'R. I'm too young to remember any of the pre-release shenanigans and madness, but I distinctly remember listening to the whole record shortly after it was released. I loved reading through the album booklet, and being fascinated by all the artwork and photos of the band. The pictures of Buckethead and Axl really intrigued me somehow, and gave some mystique to the music I was hearing. I remember thinking that some day I wanna be able to sing like Axl and learn the Shackler's Revenge solo. (Both of which I've yet to do! ) English is far from being my first language, so I think honestly I learnt a lot in a short period of time by reading the lyrics and listening to the songs.

Better quickly became my favourite tune as a kid, and a shoddy rendition of the intro was some of the first things I was taught on the guitar. There's a funny home video of me as a small kid playing it on guitar and trying to sing it. GN'R and Chinese Democracy was introduced to me by family, and it was a pretty big bonding moment of shared interests which have only grown through the years. Eventually I was turned on to some of the leaks, which truly began my fascination with GN'R. Those eight seconds of Jackie Chan really stick out in my memory, knowing that there's more out there yet to be heard. Funnily enough I started exploring the old records more, and watching horrid rips of Ritz 1988 and Tokyo 1992 and so forth. I loved the music and the energy, yet the idea of a pre-ChiDem GN'R with Slash and co. was so distant and foreign to me, that I kept returning to the familiarity of NuGuns and the ''new'' music.

The first heartbreak of my life was when GN'R came to play in our country, and seeing my siblings go to their show while I was too young to be tagging along! The biggest heartbreak, though, was seeing my brother and cousin go to the London O2 show, and getting to see Izzy and hear Shackler's Revenge. Still kind of bitter to this day

I was very excited to hear the 2013 leaks and remixes, and started reading the forums more and more. Eventually I made an account and posted more and more, which coincided with the rumours of a reunion. That was very exciting to me, as I had been exploring old GN'R more and more, and seeing DJ Ashba leaving the band wasn't particularily tragic to me.

This year is probably when I fully rediscovered and fell in love again with Chinese Democracy. I've been playing in bands for a few years now and seen some progress, and it's just fun to think that Chinese Democracy and NuGuns was probably the element in my childhood which truly lit a musical spark inside me.