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Vintage: Doug Goldstein's hilarious letter to Axl ~2009


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16 minutes ago, Euchre said:

I'm not really a fan of NR - I liked it when it came out, but have lost interest to the point I never want to hear it again.......ever. Having said that when I was into it, I did think the outro was the best part like you say. Out of those UYI ballads the only part I still like today is the ending of Estranged. Overall I find Patience infinitely more interesting than any of the UYI ballads - seems to have more originality to it, less repetitive and more relatable.

I'm probably not familiar enough with Queen to comment, but I find the Elton influence coming through, obviously the Motley influence with Home Sweet Home, but to be frank overall I just find them weak imitations of Stairway - following that 'epic ballad' formula.

 

Probably something I haven't said enough in this whole debate is I love Lies as much as I love Appetite. I don't can't think of anyone who did an album like that in the 80's. It was massively different to Appetite so I think if they stuck together there would have been an evolution I just think it would have been in a cooler and more sustainable direction. I certainly agree Appetite 5x over wouldn't be interesting, but from the outset (evidenced by Lies and quite a few interviews) I don't think the band envisaged staying in one genre.

One of the things that made Appetite stand out was the way they pulled essentially different types of songs into one cohesive style which no-one else had really done (eg everyone was doing power ballads, but Appetite instead had RQ & SCOM : if you think about RQ its the same format as Patience & UYI ballads (ie the epic ballad), they just did it in a unique way. SCOM I don't even know what I can compare it to its like a hybrid of formulas). If they replaced either of those with say Don't Cry it would have made the album more like every other album doing the rounds at the time. Appetite/Lies were different, creative and showed the band was prepared to do their own thing.

Having a hit hard rock song is a really hard thing to do - having a hit ballad is much easier - just look at how many bands in the 80's had their biggest hit the power ballad. In the 80's GNR eschewed this, by the 90's they were embracing the cliche.

you didn't comment on Slash hoarding Fall To Pieces, and where the band could have gone potentially had they had something Axl was excited about to work with. Thoughts?

I think UYI was very creative. Lies is great but it was just a stop gap, not a fully realized direction the band had an intention to pursue and what's cool about Gn'R is that every album got its own unique vibe going.

That's one of the things I believe that Axl wants every Guns album to have and I don't know if Slash was/is that interested in exploring as a musician and that's ok, but maybe it's why they couldn't progress forward as a unit anymore. Especially after Izzy left. I also think after listening to the Snakepit tapes, Axl maybe realized that musical salvation wasn't going to come from only Slash.

in retrospect it seems that bringing Paul in wasn't totally the wrong decision cause Axl used those ideas on an album he released and Slash eventually played some of the songs Paul was a part of in the NITL tour. I just think you can't ignore the preferences of your band members especially when it comes to who's gonna be in the band cause it's going to cause serious damage like I believe it did.

Edited by Rovim
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3 minutes ago, Rovim said:

you didn't comment on Slash hoarding Fall To Pieces, and where the band could have gone potentially had they had something Axl was excited about to work with. Thoughts?

I stopped day to day interest in GN'R in about '93 as I was increasingly feeling the band wasn't right without the original 5, and was losing more and more interest in the UYI. So I only know the high level history post '93.

Because I love Appetite/Lies so much and think the original band was as close to a perfect hard rock band that I've seen, when the internet came out I've checked in with the various forums starting with the Boerio one, mainly in the vain hope that a reunion might happen one day, but also because it is interesting to see how the views around GNR have changed over the years. The main reason I've been posting recently is I've basically been in covid exile on a small tropical island for the last month and the surf has been flat the last week so looking for something to do !!

So basically I've only heard Fall to Pieces a few times, but by 96 or 97 or whenever it was I wasn't particularly interested in anything GNR that wasn't the 5. I have tried to give things a listen and a chance though so there have been various releases from the individual 5 that i've liked and others I haven't liked. Nothing that has matched Appetite/Lies though. The thing that I got most excited by has been the HoF show as it was the first time in a long time the music sounded 'right' to me. (The only other time I've had that sort of feeling was when Geordie Leach came back to Rose Tattoo, it had been so long since I'd heard him play with them I'd forgotten and was so amazed how the bass player could bring the sound back to how the classic sound was blew me away - I still remember standing at that concert going wow).

So this is a long way of saying I can't really comment much on Fall to Pieces as I wasn't following closely at that stage. I will say though that if Slash held what he thought was his best songs back from the band, that is a pretty shitty thing to do. You are basically sabotaging your own band at that point.

My general thoughts however would be without the balance and sound of the 5, it still would have been off - it might have been good - there is some things both Axl and Slash have done over the years that I've liked, but I don't think it could have matched the classic era.

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53 minutes ago, Rovim said:

Especially after Izzy left. I also think after listening to the Snakepit tapes, Axl maybe realized that musical salvation wasn't going to come from only Slash.

I think Izzy is the nucleus of the band - the best 'core' song writing comes from him. If I breakdown why I think the original 5 were all so critical :

Izzy favours this simplicity and slamming cords. Great sense of rhythm.

Duff and Adler meshed in this incredible way. Both also favoured simplicity and both loved funk. They end up this groove laden beast. So critically interwoven its hard to separate them. They both also write really interesting parts.

I think Adler is so under appreciated in GNR. Every single track on Appetite has something uniquely identifiable about the drums - if you just listened to the drum track alone you can tell almost immdeately which song it is. (eg ISE intro unique, first drum stroke on Nightrain you know the song, OTGM is probably the least one but even then it has those big drum booms, Brownstone has the bo-didley rhythm, PC drum intro identifies the song, My Michelle unique intro, Think About You like Nightrain etc etc . Aside from that Jungle has well those jungle rhythms that no one else was doing at the time but were everywhere a few years later, SCOM Slash's riff gets well deserved attention, but so much of the verses of that song are just Axl's voice and Steve's drums - both with an amazing sound etc etc). Most other drummers I think it would be hard to distinguishing one of their drum tracks from another.

So you put that base together and you have this amazing rhythmic foundation for any song. I think the fact that all 3 of those guys were drummers at one point is a key and under appreciated point - they know how to bring it.

Slash / Axl then bring the epic to put it over the top. I'm not sure Slash is so good at the core writing by himself, can certainly work with other to bring it, but give him that core and he elevates the song in a way few others can. Izzy also held Slash back from the over indulgent noodling that would otherwise happen.

Axl needs someone to reign him in or he gets to this point of unable to do anything. But again put him with Izzy etc, have that balance that effectively forces him to deliver, constrains him in such a way that he can't go in endless circles and achieve nothing, and like Slash he becomes a firecracker than can elevate a song like few others.

So that balance between simpler but amazingly rhythmic, totally rocking, awesome groove foundation with just enough but not too much epic ness over the top was the balance that worked. Too much one way and you get rocking songs that probably don't stand out too much, too much the other way and you get self indulgent, pretentious or outright boring as the soul is lost....or nothing at all !!

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On 2/4/2021 at 8:58 PM, Legendador said:

But, do you agree they could have said "no, I won't sign this! talk to my lawyer!"?

Yeah definitely. But the contract wasn't problematic as long as Axl doesn't decide to exert his power. Which he eventually did by withdrawing from the partnership. 

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