'Not in this Lifetime' Selects - Overview

[Rovim]

13 minutes ago, Beto 22 said:

The problem is Slash hasnt had a  brilliant performance in a very long time. And thats affect his "takes" on songs he didn't write.

So learnin them in a proper way would helped him a lot.

Slash hasnt been brilliant live at least since VR first tour

but learning how to play the solos so they are closer to the original idea is not necessarily what Slash wants to achieve? there were many shows with Gn'R and The Conspirators that contained what I consider to be brilliant performances but part of the nature of improvisation is that it can't all be brilliant. The whole point of it is to not rely as much on planned note choices.

you gave 1 example where Robin played his own version of a Slash solo (November Rain) but the problem with not being faithful to the original material live is that you'll always get people that won't like it cause they're attached to the studio version or how the other guy played it.

many fans didn't like that NR rendition or all the other Slash solos where Robin chose to do exactly what Slash is doing with the Chinese material now. I remember people gave him a ton of shit for "butchering" the solos. Personally I liked most of it, but it's subjective. It's impressive that Bumble managed to play it so perfectly but for Slash, I'll always prefer to hear what he does with it. He's not that good copying others anyway or at least he's better at playing it his own way imo.

Slash did the same thing in the Van Halen rock hall of fame performance, choosing to not play Eddie's version of the solos.

Edited July 11, 2021 by Rovim

[Beto 22]

9 minutes ago, Rovim said:

but learning how to play the solos so they are closer to the original idea is not necessarily what Slash wants to achieve? there were many shows with Gn'R and The Conspirators that contained what I consider to be brilliant performances but part of the nature of improvisation is that it can't all be brilliant. The whole point of it is to not rely as much on planned note choices.

you gave 1 example where Robin played his own version of a Slash solo (November Rain) but the problem with not being faithful to the original material live is that you'll always get people that won't like it cause they're attached to the studio version or how the other guy played it.

many fans didn't like that NR rendition or all the other Slash solos where Robin chose to do exactly what Slash is doing with the Chinese material now. I remember people gave him a ton of shit for "butchering" the solos. Personally I liked most of it, but it's subjective. It's impressive that Bumble managed to play it so perfectly but for Slash, I'll always prefer to hear what he does with it. He's not that good copying others anyway or at least he's better at playing it his own way imo.

Slash did the same thing in the Van Halen rock hall of fame performance, choosing to not play Eddie's version of the solos.

I agree with you it's subjective.

 

And Slash take on Van Halen songs as what he did on Crazy Train its lame

[darkside259]

when axl was with the nu era guys, i love the vibes and i felt that they wern t a nostalgia act, i like the 2016-17 tour and the axl/dc epic tour, but i hope the reunion  get rid of the nostalgia thing

[Tom2112]

9 minutes ago, Beto 22 said:

I agree with you it's subjective.

 

And Slash take on Van Halen songs as what he did on Crazy Train its lame

I actually appreciated his take on the VH songs. It wasn't his style but he did a decent job. I don't want to hear Slash playing EVH or Buckethead solos note for note, but IF he's going to play either then he should play with conviction.

[darkside259]

axl is a old man now, but he can rocks if he wanna, same with slash, get adler back the guy went trought hell for the band back in the day and he can play solid rock, get back izzy and forget about the tour adiction thing, do more intimate shows, acustic redentions, try ñew things i mean, they are a hollywood band after all, with the mainstream all around but comone, they can do better, gnr rocks

Edited July 11, 2021 by darkside259

[Blackstar]

1 hour ago, Gordon Comstock said:

I always laugh when I read shit like "Slash just plays the solos his own way". When Robin and Bucket played the old solos "their way", they got nothing but shit from most fans. But Slash gets away with it because he's Slash.

Well, that's how these things go. I guess there were fans who were raving over Buckethead's or Robin Finck's takes while many others didn't like it, and now it's the reverse.

Maybe it's a quantity issue, too. Since the NuGnR setlists were, for the most part, heavy on classic era material, and so a lot of people went to the shows expecting to hear that material, they wouldn't like it if all those songs were played differently.

It also has to do with how "iconic" a solo is in the public consciousness; being "creative" with SCOM or NR, for example, is generally less "acceptable."

 

[MaskingApathy]

9 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

It also has to do with how "iconic" a solo is in the public consciousness; being "creative" with SCOM or NR, for example, is generally less "acceptable."

Slash has said that for SCOM and NR (and maybe a few others) he tries to play it note for note because they're such iconic songs.

[Blackstar]

On 7/11/2021 at 1:51 AM, Rovim said:

 I remember another interview where Slash said that he thought one of the players "didn't even try" referring to what I believe was some of the guitar solos or solo on Chinese. Maybe Robin's Better solo but that's just a guess and I can't find that interview.

This one?

Slash: [...] The other side of it was figuring out what my version of The Chinese Democracy stuff would be like, because that was a whole different Guns N’ Roses animal in terms of the musicians involved. A lot of it I thought was really cool, like Buckethead did some cool shit so I would stick to that but do it in my own way so it didn’t feel too foreign or like I was squeezing a round peg into a square hole. That was interesting and fun… more fun than it was intimidating.

Q: On the song Better, instead of trying to play like Robin Finck trying to play like you - as per the recorded version - you chose to do your own thing…

Slash:  Some of the stuff I won’t do note-for-note because it doesn’t have a serious melodic significance to the song. It sounded like they were making it up...

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3169-2018-09-29-musicradar-com-interview-with-slash

*

More Slash quotes about playing CD songs:

Slash: It was cool, you know, it was like, there were songs, there is great songs on that record, right? So, I just sort of adapted my own way of playing them and just made them, you know, more my own, as I felt them comfortable, and they just kick ass. So, it’s a pretty cool set. It’s got a lot of hits and of a lot of points of interest in the band’s career, you know.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3061-2018-08-03-siriusxm-eddie-trunk-interview-with-slash-at-the-rainbow-l-a

Slash: Um, I mean, it’s fun playing them. There’s nothing weird about it. It’s not like I’m playing something out of my comfort zone. I’m very conscious of maintaining the integrity of the recording, but still doing it the way that I would approach it.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3102-2018-08-14-rolling-stone-slash-speaks

Slash: You know, it’s very different… it’s really cool stuff, but it was played by guitar players that are very different from me style-wise. I’ve sort of adapted my own way of playing those songs to where I feel comfortable with them, but without losing the integrity of how the guitar parts go. So it’s been a lot of fun to do, like, the song “Chinese Democracy,” which I love playing. And there’s a song we’ve been playing lately called “Madagascar,” which, I don’t even know exactly what the guitar parts are on the original at this point because I’ve changed it so much. [laughs] That said, I also want to give credit where credit’s due — the guitar players that played on Chinese Democracy, Buckethead being one of the main ones — are fucking amazing guitar players. I have to give those guys a shout-out because that stuff was cool. Very different from what I normally do. So it’s been interesting learning some of the stuff that was on that record. I definitely had to figure out ways to adapt to it.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3168-2018-09-29-guitar-world-dream-sequence-slash

Slash: Any of the 'Chinese Democracy' stuff, the way that that stuff evolved was really Duff and I sort of learning the songs and the integrity of the songs and playing it the way that we would play them. They're such different musicians that actually recorded, so they ended up sounding the way that they ended up sounding, but the arrangements are more or less the same. We did change the intro [of Better]... that was actually just some idea, something that came actually from another piece of material, and it just somehow morphed into the intro for that song because it was so cool.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3173-2018-09-dd-slash-interview-with-clay-marshall-excerpts

Edited July 11, 2021 by Blackstar

[Sosso]

I wonder what "that other sort of material" was.

- Demos from the Village sessions? 

- Taken from Stay of Execution/CD II? 

- New material from the post-2008 era? 

Edited July 11, 2021 by Sosso

[Rovim]

2 hours ago, Blackstar said:

This one?

Slash: [...] The other side of it was figuring out what my version of The Chinese Democracy stuff would be like, because that was a whole different Guns N’ Roses animal in terms of the musicians involved. A lot of it I thought was really cool, like Buckethead did some cool shit so I would stick to that but do it in my own way so it didn’t feel too foreign or like I was squeezing a round peg into a square hole. That was interesting and fun… more fun than it was intimidating.

Q: On the song Better, instead of trying to play like Robin Finck trying to play like you - as per the recorded version - you chose to do your own thing…

Slash:  Some of the stuff I won’t do note-for-note because it doesn’t have a serious melodic significance to the song. It sounded like they were making it up...

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3169-2018-09-29-musicradar-com-interview-with-slash

*

More Slash quotes about playing CD songs:

Slash: It was cool, you know, it was like, there were songs, there is great songs on that record, right? So, I just sort of adapted my own way of playing them and just made them, you know, more my own, as I felt them comfortable, and they just kick ass. So, it’s a pretty cool set. It’s got a lot of hits and of a lot of points of interest in the band’s career, you know.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3061-2018-08-03-siriusxm-eddie-trunk-interview-with-slash-at-the-rainbow-l-a

Slash: Um, I mean, it’s fun playing them. There’s nothing weird about it. It’s not like I’m playing something out of my comfort zone. I’m very conscious of maintaining the integrity of the recording, but still doing it the way that I would approach it.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3102-2018-08-14-rolling-stone-slash-speaks

Slash: You know, it’s very different… it’s really cool stuff, but it was played by guitar players that are very different from me style-wise. I’ve sort of adapted my own way of playing those songs to where I feel comfortable with them, but without losing the integrity of how the guitar parts go. So it’s been a lot of fun to do, like, the song “Chinese Democracy,” which I love playing. And there’s a song we’ve been playing lately called “Madagascar,” which, I don’t even know exactly what the guitar parts are on the original at this point because I’ve changed it so much. [laughs] That said, I also want to give credit where credit’s due — the guitar players that played on Chinese Democracy, Buckethead being one of the main ones — are fucking amazing guitar players. I have to give those guys a shout-out because that stuff was cool. Very different from what I normally do. So it’s been interesting learning some of the stuff that was on that record. I definitely had to figure out ways to adapt to it.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3168-2018-09-29-guitar-world-dream-sequence-slash

Slash: Any of the 'Chinese Democracy' stuff, the way that that stuff evolved was really Duff and I sort of learning the songs and the integrity of the songs and playing it the way that we would play them. They're such different musicians that actually recorded, so they ended up sounding the way that they ended up sounding, but the arrangements are more or less the same. We did change the intro [of Better]... that was actually just some idea, something that came actually from another piece of material, and it just somehow morphed into the intro for that song because it was so cool.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3173-2018-09-dd-slash-interview-with-clay-marshall-excerpts

that's the one. It's logical to me what Slash said here and is in accordance to what I expect of him when it comes to finding the balance between respecting the material and making sure it doesn't sound off. I think it's why Fortus plays some Bucket solos. It's not because or not just about the lack of technical ability. Slash is right: some Chinese solos as they are on the album/techniques won't feel genuine coming from Slash like tapping or using some guitar effects he never used before.

in a recent interview Richard said Bumble had no pallet of his own and that he can play anything. Slash is basically the opposite of that. Side note: Richard doesn't seem to really respect Bumble as a guitar player or at least he doesn't sound impressed. Seems to have much more respect for Slash, Bucket, and Robin. (especially Slash)

my guess is that Robin's style of playing doesn't always registers as particularly good from Slash's perspective because of the choppy/staccato nature of his lines so something like the Better solo could be considered as random to him cause he's a very fluid player.

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Rovim

[Blackstar]

51 minutes ago, MaskingApathy said:

Slash has said that for SCOM and NR (and maybe a few others) he tries to play it note for note because they're such iconic songs.

Yes, even Slash himself wouldn't get away with that - even though, in theory, he would be more "entitled" since he wrote them - let alone a guy who replaced him and didn't write them.

[Towelie]

18 minutes ago, Rovim said:

in a recent interview Richard said Bumble had no pallet of his own and that he can play anything. Slash is basically the opposite of that. Side note: Richard doesn't seem to really respect Bumble as a guitar player or at least he doesn't sound impressed. Seems to have much more respect for Slash, Bucket, and Robin. (especially Slash)

 

Funny that, because I would say the exact same criticism applies more to Fortus than Ron. 

Fortus just seems salty that he will never be as proficient at his instrument as Ron is.

[RussTCB]

It's the job of anyone currently being paid to act as if anyone not currently being paid by GN'R is inferior. Thus, Fortus' comments on Ron make sense in that regard. 

[Sosso]

I just compared the Nightrain solos from Bucket and Bumble. Bucket's solo actually suited the vibe of the song while Bumble just noodled his way through it. 

[Blackstar]

8 minutes ago, RussTCB said:

It's the job of anyone currently being paid to act as if anyone not currently being paid by GN'R is inferior. Thus, Fortus' comments on Ron make sense in that regard. 

Fortus has still very positive things to say about Robin Finck and other former members, though.

So maybe it's just that he really doesn't like Bumblefoot as a player? And maybe it's mutual (and it has been all along)?

[Sosso]

1 minute ago, Blackstar said:

Fortus has still very positive things to say about Robin Finck and other former members, though.

So maybe it's just that he really doesn't like Bumblefoot as a player? And maybe it's mutual (and it has been all along)?

I think all that spite still comes from the 2006 rehearsals. Robin & Richard wanted to play the upcoming tour as a two guitar player band but Axl forced them to play with Bumble. 

[Towelie]

13 minutes ago, Sosso said:

I just compared the Nightrain solos from Bucket and Bumble. Bucket's solo actually suited the vibe of the song while Bumble just noodled his way through it. 

Each different musician is going to bring something unique to the mix. Try and put Bucket on backing vocals and see how well he fairs next to Ron. 

Ron had plenty of great moments during his tenure with the band. He remains the only GNR guitarist who could literally play ANYTHING that was thrown at him. There's a reason why Shacklers Revenge hasn't been played since Ron left the band, because Slash and Fortus would wet the bed trying not to butcher it.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Towelie

[Sosso]

1 minute ago, Towelie said:

Each different musician is going to bring something unique to the mix. Try and put Bucket on backing vocals and see how well he fairs next to Ron. 

Ron had plenty of great moments during his tenure with the band. He remains the only GNR guitarist who could literally play ANYTHING that was thrown at him. There's a reason why Shacklers Revenge hasn't been played since Ron left the band, but Slash and Fortus would wet the bed trying not to butcher it.

I would say that Bumble's guitar playing has improved a lot since 2009. He had a lot more time to rehearse the songs. I still love his extended intro for Don't Cry 

[DK6]

I've never been able to understand why anyone would want Slash  (or anyone) to play studio solos note for note night after night.

How incredibly boring.

Just put the cd on and stay home if thats what you want.

[Rovim]

1 hour ago, Towelie said:

Funny that, because I would say the exact same criticism applies more to Fortus than Ron. 

Fortus just seems salty that he will never be as proficient at his instrument as Ron is.

both players are so different stylistically so I think it's not a stretch for Richard to just not be into Bumble's playing.

Bucket, Robin, and Slash can easily do the bluesy rock thing convincingly where Bumble is more progressive to my ears and him joining Gn'R feels out of place compared to the other replacements imo. I still like his work in Gn'R though and his solo output.

Richard recently praised John Sykes (Whitesnake) and said he was incredible in his Gn'R audition and it seems he doesn't mind players with a lot of technique as long as it still has enough elements of the genre he likes the most so he could be heavily influenced by players like Jeff Beck for example but maybe not as much by players like Malmsteen so not sure that the reason for his comments is jealousy of Bumble's abilities. He already has enough technique to do his thing. I think he was just being honest.

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Rovim

[RussTCB]

27 minutes ago, DK6 said:

I've never been able to understand why anyone would want Slash  (or anyone) to play studio solos note for note night after night.

How incredibly boring.

Just put the cd on and stay home if thats what you want.

Personally, I don't want Slash to play just like the record but there's some stuff that just doesn't sound right at all to me. Taking Chinese Democracy songs out of the argument, look at Slash's recent renditions of his own Yesterdays solo. Just awful IMO. It's not that it doesn't sound like the record, it's that Slash doesn't sound like he gives a remote shit. Just my opinion 

[Sweersa]

10 hours ago, Free Bird said:

I think at the NYC show he was even closer to BH's original solo but you'll never see him do it exactly like the original. He's always kind sloppy and I think he plays it bluesier. The first solo from the 38:39 mark is pretty awesome I think.

I expect there were/are some amazing Bucket moments on CD2. If Slash re-records those parts, I hope he does a damn good job. 

Or, maybe Slash will only re-record what Bumble did, leaving Bucket's stuff alone as they were going to do on some of his stuff on CD2 (presumably)

I hope they have Richard do some leads and solos on the next album too.

[MaskingApathy]

2 hours ago, Blackstar said:

This one?

Slash: [...] The other side of it was figuring out what my version of The Chinese Democracy stuff would be like, because that was a whole different Guns N’ Roses animal in terms of the musicians involved. A lot of it I thought was really cool, like Buckethead did some cool shit so I would stick to that but do it in my own way so it didn’t feel too foreign or like I was squeezing a round peg into a square hole. That was interesting and fun… more fun than it was intimidating.

Q: On the song Better, instead of trying to play like Robin Finck trying to play like you - as per the recorded version - you chose to do your own thing…

Slash:  Some of the stuff I won’t do note-for-note because it doesn’t have a serious melodic significance to the song. It sounded like they were making it up...

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3169-2018-09-29-musicradar-com-interview-with-slash

*

More Slash quotes about playing CD songs:

Slash: It was cool, you know, it was like, there were songs, there is great songs on that record, right? So, I just sort of adapted my own way of playing them and just made them, you know, more my own, as I felt them comfortable, and they just kick ass. So, it’s a pretty cool set. It’s got a lot of hits and of a lot of points of interest in the band’s career, you know.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3061-2018-08-03-siriusxm-eddie-trunk-interview-with-slash-at-the-rainbow-l-a

Slash: Um, I mean, it’s fun playing them. There’s nothing weird about it. It’s not like I’m playing something out of my comfort zone. I’m very conscious of maintaining the integrity of the recording, but still doing it the way that I would approach it.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3102-2018-08-14-rolling-stone-slash-speaks

Slash: You know, it’s very different… it’s really cool stuff, but it was played by guitar players that are very different from me style-wise. I’ve sort of adapted my own way of playing those songs to where I feel comfortable with them, but without losing the integrity of how the guitar parts go. So it’s been a lot of fun to do, like, the song “Chinese Democracy,” which I love playing. And there’s a song we’ve been playing lately called “Madagascar,” which, I don’t even know exactly what the guitar parts are on the original at this point because I’ve changed it so much. [laughs] That said, I also want to give credit where credit’s due — the guitar players that played on Chinese Democracy, Buckethead being one of the main ones — are fucking amazing guitar players. I have to give those guys a shout-out because that stuff was cool. Very different from what I normally do. So it’s been interesting learning some of the stuff that was on that record. I definitely had to figure out ways to adapt to it.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3168-2018-09-29-guitar-world-dream-sequence-slash

Slash: Any of the 'Chinese Democracy' stuff, the way that that stuff evolved was really Duff and I sort of learning the songs and the integrity of the songs and playing it the way that we would play them. They're such different musicians that actually recorded, so they ended up sounding the way that they ended up sounding, but the arrangements are more or less the same. We did change the intro [of Better]... that was actually just some idea, something that came actually from another piece of material, and it just somehow morphed into the intro for that song because it was so cool.

https://www.a-4-d.com/t3173-2018-09-dd-slash-interview-with-clay-marshall-excerpts

Most of these quotes seem to imply that he doesn't really care to play it exactly like it's recorded; he wants to do his own thing with it.

40 minutes ago, RussTCB said:

Personally, I don't want Slash to play just like the record but there's some stuff that just doesn't sound right at all to me. Taking Chinese Democracy songs out of the argument, look at Slash's recent renditions of his own Yesterdays solo. Just awful IMO. It's not that it doesn't sound like the record, it's that Slash doesn't sound like he gives a remote shit. Just my opinion 

He doesn't, I think he's bored with some of those slower songs.

[ZoSoRose]

Some of the all time best TiL renditions come from Slash imo, he just seems to have sort of lost interest after the first few legs of the tour playing it and then it got very forgettable

I really like his version of Better. Love the original, but I am perfectly fine with Slash's take. I like that he wrote a solo for it 

CD is very strong with Slash

Catcher and Sorry are too noodley with the leads imo

Prostitute, TWAT, and Madagascar are all alright imo. They aren't that different, just bluesier cause it's Slash

 

 

[WhazUp]

4 hours ago, Beto 22 said:

Slash hasnt been brilliant live at least since VR first tour

 

I disagree, the shows in 2016 I caught Slash was the MVP of the band IMO - he was on fire