Slash played Don’t Damn Me with Todd Kerns on vocals

[MaskingApathy]

19 hours ago, Towlie said:

Also need to keep in mind he's playing bass at the same time as singing, which for a song like this is insanely difficult. The level of focus required to exert anger while singing lyrical onslaught of a song along with playing an instrument might be a bit beyond reasonable expectation.

Honestly Todd is one of the few people in earth who can pull off what you've just described, and sound really good. I'm completely serious here. He's way more talented than most people realize.

[evilfacelessturtle]

21 hours ago, 22frets said:

Well said. I think at a certain point he felt the need to expand his guitar playing technique and started leaning more into faster playing techniques like tremolo picking. 

Back in his GnR and Snakepit days, you could clearly see that his playing was somewhat limited in terms of technique and he used a lot of the same licks in many of his solos. But the key difference was that he heavily relied on phrasing and note choices to make the solos stand out and fit the song like a glove. He played each note with a purpose and did not try to overdo it. 

Present Slash is definitely a lot more skilled in terms of what he can do on guitar but his sense of phrasing and melody has been on the decline (moreso in live settings) because he leans more on fast technical playing to get through a solo. Even while playing his older solos, he just tries to string fast licks together without giving them room to breathe. 

Coupled with the fact that he's always been an off-the-cuff player who doesn't try to play his solos note-for-note (apart from the ones he considers iconic enough), it gets tiring when a lot of his soloing is taken over by really fast licks without much structure or melody. 

That said, Slash is still an amazing player and still manages to strike gold in albums and live performances. But I wish he'd dial down a bit to go back to his roots that made him the player that he is. 

The thing i don't understand is how he's become more sloppy than when he was drunk all the time. He misses way more notes now than back in the '90s. The only explanation I can think of is that he's playing so fast that he's actually going beyond his ability. That and the cleaner tone just does not work with shredding. All you hear is pick noise.

11 hours ago, DeNfr said:

for me probably 2012 with Anastasia

Anastasia is overrated IMO. There were some great tracks on that album, though. No More Heroes could have been a decent success as a single. We Will Roam was fantastic. Carolina was a classic AFD style riff. Not For Me and Far & Away were excellent ballads.

WOF is where it started falling off the rails for me. Beneath the Savage Sun and Wicked Stone and 30 yrs to Life were cool, though the production was pretty clinical and modern. Battleground is another great ballad. The rest of the album was really lacking.

LTD and 4 were basically unlistenable to me, except for Fill My World.

Edited January 30 by evilfacelessturtle

[22frets]

2 hours ago, evilfacelessturtle said:

The thing i don't understand is how he's become more sloppy than when he was drunk all the time. He misses way more notes now than back in the '90s. The only explanation I can think of is that he's playing so fast that he's actually going beyond his ability. That and the cleaner tone just does not work with shredding. All you hear is pick noise.

I think it's because back in the 90s, his speed was lower and he mostly played fast runs with hammer-ons and pull-offs, which are a lot more forgiving as you can get away with a sloppier picking technique. Of course, he also had a better tone to mask his bum notes. 

Nowadays, his playing involves a lot of fast alternate picking which combined with his lower gain tone and somewhat loose picking technique makes mistakes more obvious. I guess age is a factor too because he doesn't fully seem comfortable playing super fast and seems to lose tempo a lot more often in the recent years.

[Voodoochild]

12 hours ago, evilfacelessturtle said:

Anastasia is overrated IMO.

Disagree, but maybe I'm thinking as a guitarist. I def got into the song way later than the average GNR fan, and I totally understand why it's considered one of his best solo songs. Both the riff and chorus are extremely catchy.

I do agree that Fill My World is very good, though.

[DarkLotus1111]

That was a pretty cool treat. Such a cool song from UYI! 

[Free Bird]

20 hours ago, evilfacelessturtle said:

The thing i don't understand is how he's become more sloppy than when he was drunk all the time. He misses way more notes now than back in the '90s. The only explanation I can think of is that he's playing so fast that he's actually going beyond his ability. That and the cleaner tone just does not work with shredding. All you hear is pick noise.

Anastasia is overrated IMO. There were some great tracks on that album, though. No More Heroes could have been a decent success as a single. We Will Roam was fantastic. Carolina was a classic AFD style riff. Not For Me and Far & Away were excellent ballads.

WOF is where it started falling off the rails for me. Beneath the Savage Sun and Wicked Stone and 30 yrs to Life were cool, though the production was pretty clinical and modern. Battleground is another great ballad. The rest of the album was really lacking.

LTD and 4 were basically unlistenable to me, except for Fill My World.

For some he was only good in GNR, others think Snakepit was his last good efffort. There are people who say VR was his only good station after leaving Guns, while others prefer his solo record. A lot of people think his peak with SMKC was WOF. You say it was Apcalyptic Love. I say Apocalyptic Love is his weakest SMKC album and that 4 and Living The Dream include some fantastic songs with great guitar playing.

There’s no truth to that just opinions.
 

People listen to The General and to Monsters were he laid down some good guitar but not as good as some of his latest SMKC releases and people doubt it’s him because he can’t play like that… 
 

Most of you will disagree and moan but I think most of you are more affected by his surroundings than by his playing. 

Now beat me up.

[evilfacelessturtle]

19 hours ago, 22frets said:

I think it's because back in the 90s, his speed was lower and he mostly played fast runs with hammer-ons and pull-offs, which are a lot more forgiving as you can get away with a sloppier picking technique. Of course, he also had a better tone to mask his bum notes. 

Nowadays, his playing involves a lot of fast alternate picking which combined with his lower gain tone and somewhat loose picking technique makes mistakes more obvious. I guess age is a factor too because he doesn't fully seem comfortable playing super fast and seems to lose tempo a lot more often in the recent years.

I completely forgot about tempo. He used to rush stuff like NR occasionally back in the day, but man is his timing way off these days. Yesterdays was one that I remember being really bad around 2019 or whenever.

8 hours ago, Voodoochild said:

Disagree, but maybe I'm thinking as a guitarist. I def got into the song way later than the average GNR fan, and I totally understand why it's considered one of his best solo songs. Both the riff and chorus are extremely catchy.

I do agree that Fill My World is very good, though.

I'm a guitarist. The intro is cool, and so is the lick that it kicks into, but the verses are just kinda generic (very similar to Standing In the Sun, or an attempt at rehashing Locomotive's riff) and the chorus is just 4 chords being strummed. Slash never used to just strum four chords in a song and say "good enough". He always had a distinct riff for every section.

Ultimately, I like it better just as part of his solo in Made in Stoke.

44 minutes ago, Free Bird said:

For some he was only good in GNR, others think Snakepit was his last good efffort. There are people who say VR was his only good station after leaving Guns, while others prefer his solo record. A lot of people think his peak with SMKC was WOF. You say it was Apcalyptic Love. I say Apocalyptic Love is his weakest SMKC album and that 4 and Living The Dream include some fantastic songs with great guitar playing.

There’s no truth to that just opinions.
 

People listen to The General and to Monsters were he laid down some good guitar but not as good as some of his latest SMKC releases and people doubt it’s him because he can’t play like that… 
 

Most of you will disagree and moan but I think most of you are more affected by his surroundings than by his playing. 

Now beat me up.

I don't judge Slash based on his surroundings. There are songs I like from every band he's been in. But it's far too common a phenomenon that artists lose their inspiration with age to suggest this is just bias speaking. I generally see it like GNR > Snakepit > VR > SMKC. Now, there are other factors at play; 5 O'Clock was thrown together and ALG had more time spent on it. That shows in the result. Libertad was written during a time of strife in the band and supposedly Scott wanted something more light and poppy. "Slash" actually started being written in 2001 before going on the backburner. So that explains why it's better than Libertad IMO.

I made some pretty detailed posts breaking down why LTD and 4 were rehashing previous ideas in a less creative way. Slash was the single biggest influence on me as a guitarist so I do not say any of this lightly.

 

[Free Bird]

2 hours ago, evilfacelessturtle said:

I completely forgot about tempo. He used to rush stuff like NR occasionally back in the day, but man is his timing way off these days. Yesterdays was one that I remember being really bad around 2019 or whenever.

I'm a guitarist. The intro is cool, and so is the lick that it kicks into, but the verses are just kinda generic (very similar to Standing In the Sun, or an attempt at rehashing Locomotive's riff) and the chorus is just 4 chords being strummed. Slash never used to just strum four chords in a song and say "good enough". He always had a distinct riff for every section.

Ultimately, I like it better just as part of his solo in Made in Stoke.

I don't judge Slash based on his surroundings. There are songs I like from every band he's been in. But it's far too common a phenomenon that artists lose their inspiration with age to suggest this is just bias speaking. I generally see it like GNR > Snakepit > VR > SMKC. Now, there are other factors at play; 5 O'Clock was thrown together and ALG had more time spent on it. That shows in the result. Libertad was written during a time of strife in the band and supposedly Scott wanted something more light and poppy. "Slash" actually started being written in 2001 before going on the backburner. So that explains why it's better than Libertad IMO.

I made some pretty detailed posts breaking down why LTD and 4 were rehashing previous ideas in a less creative way. Slash was the single biggest influence on me as a guitarist so I do not say any of this lightly.

 

We talked about this topic before and I believe that you’ve got your reasons. You look at it from a different standpoint. I’m not interested in music theory. I only judge from listen and if I like something or not. I don’t care if something is rehashed or fastly thrown together as long as the result sounds good or even better to my ears. The “process” of making it, isn’t relevant to me as long as I get goosebumps from listening to his music.

[Voodoochild]

Not sure if it was posted before, but in Colombia they played the song and Slash improvised the solo again. Safe to assume that it wasn't a mistake, he just wanted to play it different. 

 

[Draguns]

8 minutes ago, Voodoochild said:

Not sure if it was posted before, but in Colombia they played the song and Slash improvised the solo again. Safe to assume that it wasn't a mistake, he just wanted to play it different. 

 

This is awesome!

[Alejandro GNR]

The solo is getting worse and worse…Im seeing Slash on February 9th and I’ll always love his playing, but this is just AWFUL

[Free Bird]

12 minutes ago, Alejandro GNR said:

The solo is getting worse and worse…Im seeing Slash on February 9th and I’ll always love his playing, but this is just AWFUL

They play for two ours and I bet you gonna enjoy most of the show 

Edited January 31 by Free Bird

[Voodoochild]

And here's yet another version, this time in Belo Horizonte, Brazil (starts at 14:00). 

 

[Amir]

The solo in Wicked Stone is probably my favourite thing Slash has done post-GNR and I love these extended live versions.

[El Guapo]

4 hours ago, Alejandro GNR said:

The solo is getting worse and worse…Im seeing Slash on February 9th and I’ll always love his playing, but this is just AWFUL

What? This one was pretty cool in my opinion, just different.

[22frets]

4 hours ago, Voodoochild said:

And here's yet another version, this time in Belo Horizonte, Brazil (starts at 14:00). 

 

Love how he jumps the gun on the solo during the verse but seamlessly goes back to playing the riff without missing a beat. Not an easy thing to do! 

The solo he played there is such an "SMKC-style" solo. Not necessarily bad but just quite different. 

Edited January 31 by 22frets

[Free Bird]

Man I wish he leaves that… I even forgot how its called… that slide guitar keyboard he uses for Rocket Man. I hope he leaves that at home. It’s not bad but I wanna listen that outro solo on guitar instead. I wouldn’t mind if he plays it first and switch to guitar at the end but doing the song completely without a real Slash solo feels like a missed opportunity 

[MaskingApathy]

1 hour ago, Free Bird said:

Man I wish he leaves that… I even forgot how its called… that slide guitar keyboard he uses for Rocket Man. I hope he leaves that at home. It’s not bad but I wanna listen that outro solo on guitar instead. I wouldn’t mind if he plays it first and switch to guitar at the end but doing the song completely without a real Slash solo feels like a missed opportunity 

Pedal Steel

[bmus1]

What are the chances Don't Damn Me is what Gilby guests on next week?

[MaskingApathy]

2 minutes ago, bmus1 said:

What are the chances Don't Damn Me is what Gilby guests on next week?

Why? Gilby has never played that song.

[evilfacelessturtle]

18 hours ago, Free Bird said:

We talked about this topic before and I believe that you’ve got your reasons. You look at it from a different standpoint. I’m not interested in music theory. I only judge from listen and if I like something or not. I don’t care if something is rehashed or fastly thrown together as long as the result sounds good or even better to my ears. The “process” of making it, isn’t relevant to me as long as I get goosebumps from listening to his music.

Oh shit, I didn't even realize that conversation was with you! 

 

[evilfacelessturtle]

8 hours ago, Voodoochild said:

And here's yet another version, this time in Belo Horizonte, Brazil (starts at 14:00). 

 

That solo it cuts to after DDM ends... how does it sound like his fingers are out of breath?

[Bitchisback]

It's probably been said in this thread but I remember Slash playing the riff during a GNR soundcheck last tour 

 

DDM is one of my favorite GNR songs all time. Just a great riff, solo, vocal performance, lyrics. Great song.

[DSTK]

Todd sounds great on it, better than myles on anything he attempts...can't stand the band because of myles one tone voice...strangled cat comes to mind 

Todd as a front man,  yeah gimme that

[Voodoochild]

Don't Damn Me got played again yesterday here in São Paulo. Seems like it's been a staple at least for the LATAM leg.