Blackstar

It's still there - both the 10 sec. clip and the "full version".

The user who added the CD on discogs doesn't look like a troll at first glance. He shared a 10 sec clip, which is different from this ~4 min. version that appeared a little later. The "full version" is supposed to be from that CD, too, but it could be just trolling/made up.

That's the original demo that leaked in 2019.

4:00. I believe it's the same as the original leak (or "leak").

I noticed that the Nightrain exclusive 7'' of Hard Skool that has Absurd and SOYL live on the b-side is 33 ⅓ RPM (which, from what I've read, is better for longer tracks without compromising the quality), while the regular 7'' was 45 RPM.

I'm not sure. I haven't heard anything about the quality of the SHM Hard Skool CD being significantly better.

Yes, that's the exclusive to Japan one (which is the only release on CD format, for now).

It would be hilarious if there were people thinking it was Slash on this one while they thought it wasn't Slash on The General and Monsters.

According to the OP of the leak, the shared file has additional padding due to the way it was extracted from the CD, which would explain the extra length. EDIT: Apparently it wasn't extracted from the CD but in another way.

It's supposed to be from the CD in that discogs listing, which seems to be from around the same time as the locker leaks, so if it's real it's definitely not Slash.

No.

Yes, it sounds too poor to be real. But it reminds me a bit of the leaks that had Bumblefoot playing over (I'm not "qualified" to tell if it's Bumblefoot or anyone else, though).

It was in an interview about Ain't Life Grant. He said that there were no GN'R references in the lyrics of the songs on ALG, as opposed to the lyrics on It's Five O' Clock Somewhere: In other words, no use scouring the lyrics for references to the Guns n’ Roses days. The first Snakepit record “was just filled with innuendo,” Slash said, but no one seemed to pick up on it since the band’s singer at the time, Eric Dover, served as a kind of filter. https://www.a-4-d.com/t4629-2000-11-02-reuters-calgary-herald-welcome-to-the-snakepit-slash

Likely fake, but the odds of this being legit are much bigger than the Atlas/SOG bs, because this user's track record is mainly stuff from other bands (mostly Rammstein), whereas the "Atlas/SOG" person had added only GN'R stuff and was one of a few weirdos/trolls in the GN'R fandom.

No, Izzy himself said it. Izzy: Axl called me when he had the plan to play Rock In Rio. I don't believe that he hoped to reform the group as a whole because I am the only one that he called, but, in any event, I declined the offer. Maybe he estimated that his group was not good enough […]. […] Axl is really a special type, he's too hard to manage. […] I already had this album in preparation and I prefer to leave on the road with my group, I find everything I need there without problems that occur when you're with Axl...[Guitar & Bass (France), June 2001] And about the 1995 demos: Izzy: So, a few months ago I found a message on my answering machine: “Yo! It’s Axl, I need a copy of the songs you made.” There was one that was called “Down by the Ocean” or “Down by the Sea”, he might’ve used it, I haven’t heard anything. [Popular 1 (Spain), July 2001]

It does seem to be about Axl, although Slash's publishing share for it doesn't suggest that the lyrics were written by him. But Slash said that in many cases Dover's lyrics were just a "filter" to things he (Slash) had written.

It does seem odd. Maybe it was a passing idea Axl had then. Interestingly though, earlier around that time he had also called Izzy asking for the 1995 demos (and kept Down By The Ocean and likely other Izzy songs) as well as for Izzy to play at Rock in Rio 3. It was probably the Bob Ezrin effect.

Izzy has neither a credit nor a publishing share for Soma City Ward. I don't know where this came from (I guess wikipedia, but it's wrong). Yes, he does (in a couple of interviews, too). From the lyrics that seem to be entirely or mostly his, though, only Take It Away looks to be about Axl. But in an interview he said that there were "innuendos" in many of the songs and Eric Dover's lyrics were just a "filter".

And regarding technique, there's this interview from back in 1988 where he talked about his singing style and working with Ron Anderson: AXL: Well, basically, driving over the mountains over and over again to get to the last five shows we did with Iron Maiden caused my ears to clog up in such a way that I couldn’t hear that well, so I would yell twice as loud and overstrained my vocals on the tour. Plus, getting back to the West Coast shows, there were more GNR fans, and it was real hectic and a lot more fun, so we were yelling twice as loud. We were slamming onstage, and, basically, I overused my throat, and the doctor told me if I didn’t take some time off, there was a good chance I’d never sing again! [....] With the way I sing, I use a lot of dynamics, and I use a lot of weird sounds with my voice that if you do for a long period of time, it’s very damaging to your throat. It’s not like Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. He sings a certain way, and he sings that way most of the time, and that’s not damaging to his throat. Some of the screams and the types of things I do are very damaging, so you can only do, like, two shows in a row. To do really good shows, then you need time off. I learned that from talking to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. He doesn’t like to do over two shows in a row because of the way he sings. It’s damaging to him, and he can’t hit the high notes, and he doesn’t feel he’s giving the public what they paid for. [...] BLAST!: Do you have to work with a vocal trainer to see if you can do something differently? AXL: I work with a guy named Ron Anderson, and I’ve worked with Ron since we got signed. I worked with a woman, Gloria Bennett, for a little while, and then I worked with Ron Anderson, and he’s very, very good. I haven’t been to him for a while, and I don’t work on, like, how to sing the songs or the melodies or the words or anything like that. I mainly just work on the muscle control in my throat and stuff. Since it’s not something I’m practiced at doing continually, your mind forgets how to do it, and then you go out there after... on your fourth or fifth show, after driving over the mountains... You can’t hear well, and the monitors aren’t that great, and you just yell loud and forget how you’re supposed to sing because you’re not used to it. That’s it. See ya, Japan! That’s the new, big, hip clone phrase now, but we do mean it! https://www.a-4-d.com/t4361-1988-11-dd-blast-axl-rose-explains-how-he-has-guns-n-roses-by-the-throat He had been taught how to apply techniques to preserve his voice early on, but most of the time he "forgot" to use them while performing in the 80s and early 90s, probably because of muscle memory combined with getting crazed and fired up while on stage.

Axl said in China Exchange that he made a conscious effort to sing cleaner both in the studio for recording CD and live during that time (I suppose he was referring to those early 2000's performances). Audience: Hi there. Big fan. Did you ever feel that your voice was- your voice is obviously a natural fit for rock and that kind of genre, but did you ever feel that you want to branch out a bit more maybe collaborate, maybe join a jazz band, who knows? Axl: I like Frank Sinatra. I like a lot of Elvis, I like a lot of 70s Elvis though as well. I like a lot of different styles of things. I don't know about a jazz band. It really just kind of depends on the song. For a while, like with Chinese, I was trying to get my voice a lot clearer. I feel like that maybe fans didn't necessarily respond to that so much as well, sometimes, at shows and things but I think it was very good for me to be even better at what I am doing right now. https://www.a-4-d.com/t2686-2016-06-07-china-exchange-an-evening-with-axl-rose So maybe those "inconsistencies" and switches from rasp to cleaner voice at the shows of that time were actually the result of the opposite: the "raspy" lines were the ones that were random because of muscle memory and the way he used to sing, but then he was bringing himself back to singing clean, as that was his choice.

Beggars was written during the GN'R tour though and Duff has a writing credit on it, so that jam probably was really the basis of it. Going by the publishing shares, Slash seems to also have written most of the lyrics to I Hate Everybody (But You) and part of the lyrics to Back and Forth Again and Doin' Fine (I intend to add a "bonus section" to my writing credits thread about VR and Slash's other bands.

According to Marc Canter they were songs Slash "had written on" (before he left the band). So it was either songs that were built upon a Slash idea or, more likely, tracks in development that Axl was working on in the mid 90s (probably with Paul Tobias) and Slash had laid guitar parts on during the last sessions. So TIL could have been one of them and maybe FTP was a part that Slash had come up with and Axl wanted to use it for one of his own songs. Hard School could also have been one of those Axl songs and Slash didn't even remember laying guitar on it.

The only thing Axl said about FTP was that Slash played "the key bits" of it during the 1996 sessions. So it probably was just a riff idea that Slash came up with then and likely forgot about it. Axl hasn't talked about Slash and the three songs on CD. Marc Canter is the source of that story.

All the quotes about FTP are in the a-4-d link I posted above (just scroll down a bit for the excerpts from Slash's book): https://www.a-4-d.com/t6807-fall-to-pieces

Slash's memory of that period has been, by his own admission, very hazy. And Duff recently said that Slash didn't remember playing guitar on Hope. So I think it's more likely that Slash doesn't remember than Marc Canter misremembering.