I am not a big fan of Rolling Stones, I like them, but they’re not my cup of cake, if you know what I mean. On the other hand, I like GNR, they come closer to what I look for in music.

However, seems that there are some common grounds to all these, there are points where Rolling Stones and Guns connect, beside the fact that the Stones probably represents a milestone for every single rock music lover in the world.

Like for example Sympathy for the devil, I didn’t know Guns recorded their own version, I just found it on YT and I can say it sounds interesting. Not quite GNR, but Axl’s voice gives an interesting flavor to this song, isn’t i?

Let’s see, comparing these 2 versions of 2 great bands, which one you find better? Or let’s say closer to your soul.

I would have personally liked to hear a bit more of Slash on this song, if Slash is actually present here. I can’t tell, is it actually GNR or a later version of Axl without the band?

Or, it’s like one commenter on YT said

“Don’t get me wrong i like guns and roses, but this is just one of those songs you don’t touch. It’s like someone covering thriller “

What do you have to say? Or is it like in that childhood dilemma in the title?

And by the way, somebody DID cover Thriller…

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I was reading on MusicRadar.com (via GuitarMX) an article about why Chinese Democracy was not a commercial success.

OK, first of all, I must admit that after writing here a couple of posts about it and listening the tracks on YT, I totally forgot about it so, pardon me but I wasn’t aware of the fact that it was not a success, especially after the album generated that big buzz right before being released. I presumed that, even if I don’t like it that much, other people like it and buy it.

Interesting that after all, it didn’t go that well. Personally speaking, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for Axl and his work of 15(?) years, I presume that when you work that much for a record, you put every single hope in it so, it is not something to joke with.

However, reading the reasons MusicRadar listed on that article, reasons for which the album failed to become what Axl planned, I must admit that some of them were quite pertinent.

I mean, the fact that out of the guys in the office of MusicRadar, none could name all the musicians involved in recording the album, it is a sign that there is no band there.

Come on, GNR was a brand, each guy there was a brand, I mean you knew them, you could name everyone of them, the brand was strong, had continuity and personality. When you can not name the band members, you have a marketing problem, I guess.

They also list there the fact that Chinese Democracy isn’t a masterpiece and people calling on the radio didn’t ask one single time the new song but…old hits like November rain, Paradise city, etc. Sad, but true after all. Is there a song on this album to compare to November rain? I don’t think so.

But the most important reason, and one I have always named here on this blog, is the fact that GNR isn’t GNR anymore. I know it, you know it and maybe the most important, they know it. And they didn’t buy it either…

I already said it but I will say it again: I am sorry about it, I would have liked that, against all odds and against my previous posts and feelings, the new album be a success, for the sake of rock music, for my nostalgic feelings of a long gone period and for the fact that I turned to rock thanks to Guns and thanks to Patience.

The fact is that I don’t know what to say more about it, so, the rest is silence…

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Today I have listened Chinese Democracy on MySpace (the 6 songs that are there, I presume the best on the record), after my friend and band colleague Costin (GNR dedicated fan) victoriously told me on instant messaging that GNR’s latest record is officially the most listened record on MySpace and that the record was already awarded platinum in Finland for the sales in the first day…

OK, I admit, that made me a bit curious since I haven’t listened more than the track that gives the title at that moment, so I ran to MySpace to see what’s the buzz all about.

Remember that article about a Fm chord on the latest ACDC record? Well, I’ve heard, I think, the first official sweep picking (on the song “Better”) and if I’m not mistaken, also the first tapping (I don’t think I’ve heard tapping on Slash’s records, did I?)

Axl’s voice sounds the same and at the same time different. I think he loses his scratches here and there but all together it’s mean and…it’s rock. I also noticed electronic drums and modern synthesized sounds. However, it’s still pure rock, brought in today’s world.

But did the world as we know it change with this new album?

Well, I am not happy to say it, but I am not thrilled, it didn’t blow me away. It is a nice album, but really, it didn’t blow me away.

All together, it’s a new release of an artist with a great voice, somebody who was the idol of a generation, of somebody who personally I pitied for disappearing in such a way from the musical scene, but…you know what?

The sun will rise again tomorrow.

Ah, yes, and finally Axl released his long waited album. Thank God!

By the way, you can buy Axl’s Chinese Democracy from Amazon

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These days everybody speaks about Axl Rose and his upcoming album,Chinese Democracy, so I can not stop myself speaking about it.

I have said it before that I don’t believe anymore in Axl, not without the rest of the band, especially after 14 years of pause, 14 years of never ending stories about how he will make the greatest album ever.

But here we are, waiting for the big day, the day when Axl Rose’s latest album will be released.

I am really looking forward to it, to see what it brings, and I will probably buy it. However, I will buy it as a new beginning, a new era in Axl’s musical life, not as a new album of GNR. For me, GNR died the moment Slash and Co walked a new path. I don’t blame them or Axl for breaking up the band. I don’t have the right to do it, they are the band, I am just a fan, so I just take the facts as they are. And the fact is that GNR split back then, Axl went one direction, Slash & Co went another way. Or as my friend and bass player would say, they went the same way, opposite directions…

Now after 14 years, GNR releases a new album. I don’t buy that.

That’s not GNR out there, that’s just a solo album of Axl. And I do buy that, I buy it with a fresh and open mind, waiting for a great release of a proven musician.

That being said, I just ask myself, if Axl wouldn’t have had the legal rights for the name GNR, would have his new album started that much buzz worldwide or would have been just another solo album out there?

So, what do you think about it? And more than this, what do you buy? A new GNR album or Axl’s solo album?

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At last rehearsal with the band we decided to cover Don’t cry from GNR, after all, it must be pretty easy, we all like GNR and this it’s a song we sing and play since high school, we know it by default, right? Eh, when listening the song I was surprised by a few nice progressions there, that I didn’t expect, that helped the song a lot. But that’s not the subject of this post.

The subject is actually the guitar solo or the guitar behind the solo, to be more exact. I didn’t pay too much attention in the beginning to the chords behind the solo, presuming they go by some repetitive chords like the chorus for ex. How wrong I could be!

After working this part with they guys in my band, I could say that my impression is that the solo was created first, and then they created a backup track to support the solo, which is totally strange from my point of view. I say this because the chords under the solo don’t follow any pattern, the length of a particular chord depends on the particular passage the solo plays and not the other way around.

My way of soloing is to actually improvise over a common pattern in the song, like the chorus or some intro, f.e. and I have never written a solo that I needed to back up later. I have some passages in particular songs that I needed to explain to my band mate playing the other guitar when he joined the band and I did need to find chords to match a particular progression but I was the only guitar player in the band at that moment and the only melodic backup was the bass line, which can be pretty free; I think this does not apply to GNR since Slash was never the only player there, isn’t it? Then?

My opinion is that Slash worked the solo without the second guitar player, in a free way, making the solo sound nice and then they searched for some backup chords to match the solo.

Listen here and tell me your call on this.

PS: When embedding this video here I was totally charmed by this song and listened every note of it until the end, totally forgetting I have this post under editing!!

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Patience was the song that really turned me to rock music and I have always thought the sound there is the most you can get from an acoustic guitar.

The sound is so clean and warm that nothing can beat it and the fact there are no drums there gave me the feeling of being closer to the song, like the song was recorded by a few guys playing the guitar for fun, like we used to do at one party or another…

Now I have discovered on YT this version of Patience played by Velvet Revolver and even if they didn’t change that much to it, the new voice makes it sound different while keeping the rest of it makes it sound the same. New and still the same, does it make any sense to you?

How do you like this version? Did you know it?

PS: Listen closely, did one of the guitar players played a flat note on 1:21 or is it just me?! I love those moments!!

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I have always thought about that summer camp I was telling you about and how this Guns’N Roses unplugged ballad made the change. If it weren’t those acoustic guitars maybe I would have still loved rap at this age, even if I doubt, since probably rock would have finally broken through one way or another. Today, the acoustic guitar I have in my room is one of the 3 things I need, along with my computer and my digital camera. I play every day and it clears my mind when I get back home after a long and busy day. I am also in love with electric guitars, but that is another story, I can not play the electric guitar every day since I live in an apartment and I do have my neighbors, you know…

For me, acoustic guitars are one of the most beautiful things on this earth, the sound is that pure and clear and in the middle of the night, after a few drinks with your friends at a party, this is all you need.

An acoustic guitar is the best way to bring back the long gone past

Do you realize that there is nothing better to bring back the memories of the past than an acoustic guitar, a bunch of old friends and a bottle of wine? Of course, this is if you know how to play that guitar. If you have that magic trio, then all that songs that you have thought forgotten come to life again and everybody will start singing along. That is why I love acoustic guitars, for the fact they remind me of all those lovely high school parties, of late night college fun, of playing on the seaside by night or by late nights around the fire in the mountains.

The acoustic guitar was part of my life since many, many years and I don’t know if I could live without it. I love electric guitars, I love how Joe Satriani makes those alien sounds and how Steve Vai pushes the music to where no man has gone before, but most of all, I love “Patience” of Guns’N Roses, I love Mr Big’s “Be with you” and the whole unplugged movement that started, in my universe, with Nirvana’s unplugged sounds.

That is why I love acoustic guitars…

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I remember the feeling I had when I first started to like rock music. I was in a summer camp, during high school period and it was this girl, one of my class colleagues, who was a big fan of Guns N’ Roses, and I mean really big fan of Guns N’ Roses and their music. I remember back then I used to listen rap and dance music and totally rejecting anything related or only close to rock music.

Back then, Guns N’ Roses’ “Don’t cry” was in heavy rotation on radio here in Romania and I had a lot of chances to listen to it, but I was just…turning off the radio just to not listen anymore since I was feeling that inside me, something is changing with each note I was hearing and I just didn’t want to. I was such a stubborn teenager back then, I guess…

So, I was running away from “Don’t cry” because I felt that anytime I was hearing it on radio, on TV or anywhere else, my love for rap music was fading away and it seemed less and less interesting, personal and close to my soul. Instead, rock music was gaining more and more of it. “Don’t cry” was getting to me and I was running away, I was fighting the feeling that was growing inside me for the lovely electric guitar sound, those starting riffs of Slash’s Gibson guitar and Axl’s scratchy voice. Of course, back then I had no idea what guitar Slash had, I only knew a thing or two about electric guitars but not much.

Anyway, I remember that a few months before this, I had bought an acoustic guitar of smaller size from a friend of mine (back then I didn’t know that acoustic guitars come on sizes so it didn’t make too much difference to me). I can not tell you now why I bought it, I was listening rap, no rock, but I think I just found that brownish acoustic guitar one of the things I must have so I’ve bougt it and how handy it came from that moment on.

Coming back to my story, I was in this summer camp and this girl brought with her 42 tapes (I am dead serious!) with Guns N’ Roses and some other rock bands, but mostly Guns N’ Roses. Of course Guns N’ Roses doesn’t have that many tapes, but there are compilations, best of, albums, live shows and this girl had them all! And I really mean all, plus tones of black t-shirts with Guns N’ Roses and the skull. We had some Walkmans with us in this camp and I remember borrowing tapes from her and starting to listen.

And the acoustic guitars broke the defense line

I remember the moment I dropped the defense line and I let myself in the hands of music…And, most of all, I remember the song that made this change possible…

It was not “Don’t cry”, even if it is of the songs I really love even today and it was part of my transformation. It was “Patience”, a song that broke my heart in two, a song that I found so sweet and clean that I could not resist anymore. I came back an other person, I came back a rocker. I remember sitting in the dark while driving back from the camp, at night and listening Patience over and over again, I remember the acoustic guitars, the clean sound, the sparks in those treble sounds and Axl counting in the beginning…one..two…

And so a rocker was born, a guitar player and an avid seeker of new sounds, thanks to Guns N’ Roses, thanks to Patience, thanks to acoustic guitars and their lovely, clean sound. And thanks to that girl…

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