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The Blues Thread


Georgy Zhukov

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I do not agree either considering the blues itself is a fusion genre. In its raw essentials it is a fusion of African rhythms and word play, and Western folk instrumentation. Of course you might regard Muddy Waters (et al) as the greatest bluesman alive, and you would probably be correct, but that is because he is Muddy Waters, not because people who followed were straight jacketed by being labelled ''poorer derivatives'' of Muddy and his generation.

There has been too much great white blues music also, which rather proves the universalism of the genre.

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I do not agree either considering the blues itself is a fusion genre. In its raw essentials it is a fusion of African rhythms and word play, and Western folk instrumentation. Of course you might regard Muddy Waters (et al) as the greatest bluesman alive, and you would probably be correct, but that is because he is Muddy Waters, not because people who followed were straight jacketed by being labelled ''poorer derivatives'' of Muddy and his generation.

There has been too much great white blues music also, which rather proves the universalism of the genre.

western folk instrumentation never sounded like that before though. Mainstream culture even considered it unmusical until at least the 50s, these ignorant negroes using stringed instruments like they were percussion, it was considered haphazard and sort of thick. Edited by Len B'stard
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You know who could have been a great bluesman? Slash. I've heard him do some excellent blues playing in his solo spots. Really emotive playing on the neck pick up with the les paul tone. The guy wastes his career doing cheesy Aerosmith knock offs when he could be putting out blues albums.

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You know who could have been a great bluesman? Slash. I've heard him do some excellent blues playing in his solo spots. Really emotive playing on the neck pick up with the les paul tone. The guy wastes his career doing cheesy Aerosmith knock offs when he could be putting out blues albums.

There is no way Slash could have been a great bluesman. His passion consists of more influences and he's not that good of a blues player anyway. Not really.

I wouldn't have it any other way though. The special thing about Slash in the first place is how he managed to come up with his own sound from all his musical influences and form something unique like you can say "that's Slash right there" his tone, some blues, some hard rock, some metal. He took a little bit from everything he liked. Some country as well and you have Paradise City with the hard rock and even metal like some of his riffs for example.

Edited by Rovim
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You know who could have been a great bluesman? Slash. I've heard him do some excellent blues playing in his solo spots. Really emotive playing on the neck pick up with the les paul tone. The guy wastes his career doing cheesy Aerosmith knock offs when he could be putting out blues albums.

There is no way Slash could have been a great bluesman. His passion consists of more influences and he's not that good of a blues player anyway. Not really.

I wouldn't have it any other way though. The special thing about Slash in the first place is how he managed to come up with his own sound from all his musical influences and form something unique like you can say "that's Slash right there" his tone, some blues, some hard rock, some metal. He took a little bit from everything he liked. Some country as well and you have Paradise City with the hard rock and even metal like some of his riffs for example.

From the bits I have heard, I totally disagree.

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You know who could have been a great bluesman? Slash. I've heard him do some excellent blues playing in his solo spots. Really emotive playing on the neck pick up with the les paul tone. The guy wastes his career doing cheesy Aerosmith knock offs when he could be putting out blues albums.

There is no way Slash could have been a great bluesman. His passion consists of more influences and he's not that good of a blues player anyway. Not really.

I wouldn't have it any other way though. The special thing about Slash in the first place is how he managed to come up with his own sound from all his musical influences and form something unique like you can say "that's Slash right there" his tone, some blues, some hard rock, some metal. He took a little bit from everything he liked. Some country as well and you have Paradise City with the hard rock and even metal like some of his riffs for example.

At this point in time i don't think there is anything special about Slash. There could've been but i don't think it was his wish and hey, fair play to him, a persons artistry and what they want to do with their thing is their business, the audience shouldn't dictate that shit, who am i to say how he should or shouldn't play.

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From the bits I have heard, I totally disagree.

Can't say I'm surprised. The bits I have heard are probably not the bits you have heard. You need more bits. Or to clean your ears.

Pity Clapton overheard Slash play at some awards show or musicians' knees up and said to his neighbour, ''fuck, the boy can play'' (or something similar). Argument destroyed. Go back to your discussions about ginger bollocks.

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From the bits I have heard, I totally disagree.

Can't say I'm surprised. The bits I have heard are probably not the bits you have heard. You need more bits. Or to clean your ears.

Pity Clapton overheard Slash play at some awards show or musicians' knees up and said to his neighbour, ''fuck, the boy can play'' (or something similar). Argument destroyed. Go back to your discussions about ginger bollocks.

In a second. But before that I'll just point out your error. John Mayer is a cunt for example, but he's a great blues player. Slash... not so much. Slash is a great hard rock player. Bluesy hard rock. There is a major difference between what Slash can do and what a proper blues guitar player does.

And that's fine. Slash does Slash. No one can play like that but him.

Edited by Rovim
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From the bits I have heard, I totally disagree.

Can't say I'm surprised. The bits I have heard are probably not the bits you have heard. You need more bits. Or to clean your ears.

Pity Clapton overheard Slash play at some awards show or musicians' knees up and said to his neighbour, ''fuck, the boy can play'' (or something similar). Argument destroyed. Go back to your discussions about ginger bollocks.

In a second. But before that I'll just point to your error. John Mayer is a cunt for example, but he's a great blues player. Slash... not so much. Slash is a great hard rock player. Bluesy hard rock. There is a major difference between what Slash can do and what a proper blues guitar player does.

And that's fine. Slash does Slash. No one can play like that but him.

Yes, but my argument is, Slash is excellent when he plays (pure) blues, when he does, the few occasions he does. My argument is that he should do more of it. He puts out album upon album of these Aerosmith-by-numbers and little of it is very good really and serves no purpose? Why not do a whole album with Beth Hart, or just a bluesy jam album?

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Yes, but my argument is, Slash is excellent when he plays (pure) blues, when he does, the few occasions he does. My argument is that he should do more of it. He puts out album upon album of these Aerosmith-by-numbers and little of it is very good really and serves no purpose? Why not do a whole album with Beth Hart, or just a bluesy jam album?

I fully understood your argument. I disagree. He is not an excellent blues player not in any occasion. He is not a great country player. He is not a great metal player.

He can play some nice blues. But I really think you don't fully take into consideration what a great blues player does. It's not Slash's forte. He doesn't understand the blues like Clapton for example, and he is certainly not a great blues player.

It's an element and a major influence in his music yes, but what he really is as a guitar player is closer, much closer to hard rock. Bordering on metal at times, but it's easy to hear he is not a great metal player as well.

Edited by Rovim
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I don't agree. I think there is blues potential there. And besides you could make the argument that in order to be a great blues-based hard rocker, you need a certain competence with the basics, i.e. the blues. I mean if you strip some of those hard rock songs like Jungle and Nightrain down, the basic guitar component is blues, minor pentatonic.

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I don't agree. I think there is blues potential there. And besides you could make the argument that in order to be a great blues-based hard rocker, you need a certain competence with the basics, i.e. the blues. I mean if you strip some of those hard rock songs like Jungle and Nightrain down, the basic guitar component is blues, minor pentatonic.

But being a great blues guitar player is not basic. And what you said about Slash's work on Jungle and the holy song is horseshit. Slash said something musically which consisted of mainly bluesy hard rock with some metal on top. It came from the blues, but it really isn't the blues.

Slash's best guitar playing live and in the studio is bluesy hard rock with some spanish runs sometimes, country, metal, and blues too. You are very wrong as usual.

Slash is a great guitar player, if he attempted to do a blues album, I'll buy it, but I think there is a good reason of why he never actually did one.

Edited by Rovim
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I don't agree. I think there is blues potential there. And besides you could make the argument that in order to be a great blues-based hard rocker, you need a certain competence with the basics, i.e. the blues. I mean if you strip some of those hard rock songs like Jungle and Nightrain down, the basic guitar component is blues, minor pentatonic.

But being a great blues guitar player is not basic. And what you said about Slash's work on Jungle and the holy song is horseshit. Slash said something musically which consisted of mainly bluesy hard rock with some metal on top. It came from the blues, but it really isn't the blues.

Slash's best guitar playing live and in the studio is bluesy hard rock with some spanish runs sometimes, country, metal, and blues too. You are very wrong as usual.

Slash is a great guitar player, if he attempted to do a blues album, I'll buy it, but I think there is a good reason of why he never actually did one.

I will clarify it for you simply. Take Mr Brownstone,

- remove the cock rock lyrics, in fact remove the singing altogether

- remove the distortion on the guitars

- focus on the leads

What are you left with? The blues.

With some occasional forays in hispanic and modal areas, certainly, but still predominately the blues.

According to Rovim, Slash ''is not an excellent blues player not in any occasion''.

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I don't agree. I think there is blues potential there. And besides you could make the argument that in order to be a great blues-based hard rocker, you need a certain competence with the basics, i.e. the blues. I mean if you strip some of those hard rock songs like Jungle and Nightrain down, the basic guitar component is blues, minor pentatonic.

But being a great blues guitar player is not basic. And what you said about Slash's work on Jungle and the holy song is horseshit. Slash said something musically which consisted of mainly bluesy hard rock with some metal on top. It came from the blues, but it really isn't the blues.

Slash's best guitar playing live and in the studio is bluesy hard rock with some spanish runs sometimes, country, metal, and blues too. You are very wrong as usual.

Slash is a great guitar player, if he attempted to do a blues album, I'll buy it, but I think there is a good reason of why he never actually did one.

I will clarify it for you simply. Take Mr Brownstone,

- remove the cock rock lyrics, in fact remove the singing altogether

- remove the distortion on the guitars

- focus on the leads

What are you left with? The blues.

With some occasional forays in hispanic and modal areas, certainly, but still predominately the blues.

No. Hard rock consists of various elements. You can't strip down something you don't understand. It is it's own genre, just like blues, with rules, or more like ingredients that form the sound.

I'll try to simplify: Slash took a few ingredients from different genres and even specific styles from specific guitar players. Albert King, Joe Perry, Page, May. You can hear it right away, but the thing is,

He came up with one big sound that was his own. The Slash sound. You can't strip down shit, cause it won't be Slash. What he is great at is what he does best: playing the way he plays which really tells me most about him as a guitar player which is, you know... he is great at playing hard rock with different influences thrown in for good measure. It's usually bluesy.

But it's not even just a technical reason. He is not John Mayer, which remained closer to what he loved in a way. But a great blues player.

Slash also stayed closer to what he loved which is THE COMBINATION of the blues, hard rock, and metal mostly.

Jimi for example was both a great hard rock player and a blues player.

Edited by Rovim
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He has not done that (hard rock) particularly well for years, not since Guns N' Roses, and - as the clips demonstrate - if he does do a pure blues thing, which obviously he occasionally does so thus demonstrating the fact that he is not that adverse to the playing of pure blues, it is extremely good. He even had a jam band called Blues Ball!

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He has not done that (hard rock) particularly well for years, not since Guns N' Roses, and - as the clips demonstrate - if he does do a pure blues thing, which obviously he occasionally does so thus demonstrating the fact that he is not that adverse to the playing of pure blues, it is extremely good. He even had a jam band called Blues Ball!

But he never really did the blues thing. No album, but he'll still occasionally jam with others or even in his own live shows. I'm sure he loves the blues and it's something he visits from time to time.

But that's the thing: there is less blues in his music compared to proper blues players. I've watched Blues Ball shows, and it's great, but he is pretty limited. Like he's not really in his element. And it's not pure blues, it's hard rock as well.

There was a clip in which John Mayer fuckin' destroyed Slash in a jam live. Absolutely horridly murdered him. You could hear Mayer lives in it. Slash's attempts were very poor and you could hear how limited he is when it's all blues.

And I didn't judge from just that one show. He can play some nice blues, but a great blues player he is not.

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Analysing a setlist for Slash's Blues Ball, what do we find?

Born Under A Bad Sign

Key to the Highway

Night Prowler

I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man

Bring it On Home

Oh Well

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/slashs-blues-ball/1998/the-roxy-west-hollywood-ca-63c0366b.html

So Slash is certainly not adverse to the playing of a purer form of blues - he built a whole band and toured in order to do this very thing.

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Bit unfair really as Slash missed Billy's cue during the process of riffing before proceeding to go hopelessly out of key for about four beats - obviously just a genuine mistake and not some certifiable evidence that Slash can not play a pure blues. Or to put it another way, there is evidence out there of much better blues playing by Slash. The rest of the solo was perfectly decent, a Richards-esque Honky Tonk derivative of the blues. But yes Mayer certainly comes of the better of the two there.

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Bit unfair really as Slash missed Billy's cue during the process of riffing before proceeding to go hopelessly out of key for about four beats - obviously just a genuine mistake and not some certifiable evidence that Slash can not play a pure blues. Or to put it another way, there is evidence out there of much better blues playing by Slash. The rest of the solo was perfectly decent, a Richards-esque Honky Tonk derivative of the blues. But yes Mayer certainly comes of the better of the two there.

And Mayer is the better of the two in general, in what he chose to do the most, cause his passion is closer to fairly conservative blues. Proper blues if you will. And of course he's very talented as a guitar player.

Slash is just into a sound that contains other elements as well, and just as prominent, if not more so. His focus is on what he imagines in his head, and the musical instincts he follows. It sounds like he's really more of a hard rock player that combines with it the blues and to a lesser extent metal, country, etc,

The blues actually limits Slash imo. He can express himself the best when he's fully into something. In all of his albums it's mostly hard rock I'm hearing. Like he'll collaborate and stay varied by working on other people's albums, might do a blues song in the future, but it seems he has more to say in other genres. In his main one, hard rock.

Safari Inn is a very nice recent example of what Slash does best, fuckin' nailed it. So he is startlingly talented as a guitar player, but he's just not a proper blues player imo.

Edited by Rovim
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But we are dealing with a hypothetical scenario. My argument is Slash would have been a better blues artist with his solo albums than doing sub-Aerosmith albums. This decision would have been made, c.1996-9, upon leaving Guns and setting up his first proper (not side project) solo album. 15 years of blues playing and albums under his belt and you might actually be arguing that ''Slash is one of the great blues players''. Don't laugh as this is a hyperthetical scenario. But that scenario did not happen and he pursued the Snakepit/Conspirators cock rock thing.

Is his career better for it? I certainly like his debut with the collaborations and there are gems on his other albums like Anastasia but you certainly have to wade through a lot of shit to find them.

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But we are dealing with a hypothetical scenario. My argument is Slash would have been a better blues artist with his solo albums than doing sub-Aerosmith albums. This decision would have been made, c.1996-9, upon leaving Guns and setting up his first proper (not side project) solo album. 15 years of blues playing and albums under his belt and you might actually be arguing that ''Slash is one of the great blues players''. Don't laugh as this is a hyperthetical scenario. But that scenario did not happen and he pursued the Snakepit/Conspirators cock rock thing.

Is his career better for it? I certainly like his debut with the collaborations and there are gems on his other albums like Anastasia but you certainly have to wade through a lot of shit to find them.

Aerodeth starts soon. Nice Slash debate. Not even a true blues player but if he would JUST put his mind to it.

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Yes, but my argument is, Slash is excellent when he plays (pure) blues, when he does, the few occasions he does. My argument is that he should do more of it. He puts out album upon album of these Aerosmith-by-numbers and little of it is very good really and serves no purpose? Why not do a whole album with Beth Hart, or just a bluesy jam album?

I fully understood your argument. I disagree. He is not an excellent blues player not in any occasion. He is not a great country player. He is not a great metal player.

He can play some nice blues. But I really think you don't fully take into consideration what a great blues player does. It's not Slash's forte. He doesn't understand the blues like Clapton for example, and he is certainly not a great blues player.

It's an element and a major influence in his music yes, but what he really is as a guitar player is closer, much closer to hard rock. Bordering on metal at times, but it's easy to hear he is not a great metal player as well.

What's it that great blues players do? No offence. Im interested to know.
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