G'N'PGDS'N'R Continued

Jamie gave me a bunch of soundboard recordings of their recent Southwest / West Coast tour (including the Flagstaff show, and if you are any kind of head, Phish, Dead or otherwise, you know how key it is to have the shows you've attended). They are excellent and give a great opportunity to hear crisp recordings of music they've written / performed a ton since Slow Down came out. One of the folders was labeled "Live Up!," and I am playing pretend this is a sort of best of the tour album, though for all I know it's culled entirely from one show and I'm just an idiot. Still, i've had some fun listening to it on cycle whilst writing research papers. I even stole a ridiculous pic from the interwebs and made an album cover for it:

Live Up!
Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad (2008)

1. Seasons Change
2. Paranoia
3. Work Very Hard
4. Easy Way Out
5. New Melodia Dub
6. Pockets
7. Walk Right Through
8. Black Toke
9. Live Up! Dub (???)
10. Melodica Dub
11. Dylan's Times
12. The Body Song

So as mentioned, the songs are infectious. I knew the majority of them from other (crappier) audience recordings I had nabbed from the Internet Archive, but these are super clear, hear every bass note, every keyboard bubble, every high hat tic soundboards. Just excellent, but I think this makes their heroin-coursing-through-your-soul effect that much greater. Perhaps the answer to this is to stop listening, but I JUST CAN'T¹.

"Seasons Change," if you don't know it from other than the Slow Down LP, is now played a little faster and features a spacey, guitar loop jam toward its end that is hippie-swirl-dance to-die-for. They break it up with a vocal scat version of the chorus that is goose bump inducing. Just great. Paranoia is a signature laid back groove that features the ever memorable taunt chant, "There ain't nothing you can do about it anywaaaaay." Love the summer breeze guitar solo in this one. "Work Very Hard" is an up-tempo riff song with a propeller of a drive and an ominous feel that works great.

And then there's "Easy Way Out." I am pretty confident that Jamie wrote this one, and like "45" (which I can only find on internet archive so far, BOO!) and "Burkina Faso," this song demonstrates a sick pop-sensibility on GPGDS's part. Seriously, this is the avian flu of infectious tunes. That's a stupid metaphor. But the point is (and you can listen to that crappy-sound q version in the previous post) that you leave a concert and if they dropped this on your unsuspecting head, you will find yourself singing the chorus with a stupid grin on your face a week later. Just a fantastic track with single potential imho.

So Rachel, one of the band's keyboardists, owns a melodica, that funky two and a half octive keyboard that you play like a recorder. Very, very particular sound. GPGDS has played at least three different way, way slow down dubs featuring R on melodica with the melody; they're all quite haunting, but I probably like "New Melodica Dub" best of the three. This album also features (supposedly the original one?) "Melodica Dub," and both of them add a nice, somber, plaintive mood to the primarily upbeat disc.

"Pockets" is another slower number, and the purest protest song of the bunch. "Walk Right Through" is another entry in the infectious reggae pop category, good stuff. "Black Toke" is another riff-rocker, very groove oriented and carrying that fervor feel. Nice full band coordinated breakdowns in that one.

The back end of the album dives into the instrumental with a two-minute jam in "Live Up! Dub," the aforementioned "Melodica Dub" and "Dylan's Times," a quick paced jam featuring lead lines from talented lead guitarist Dylan Savage and some lyrics from GPGDS's "In These Times." The break works, as the first eight tracks of this album border on too memorable - nice to have a forget-yourself break of a dive into jam.

The closer is "The Body Song," and just to say something that isn't "this is awesome!," I think it's not really a great choice to close. It's a pleasant enough song, but falls more in the laid back category and lacks the blissful memorability of "Easy" or "Walk." Still, a happy tune to close things out. Again, I'm not sure if this is scheduled for release or what, but it's an absolutely fantastic representation of the stuff that GPGDS has been doing on the road the past year. Check it out and give them money if you get a chance.

Status: Recommended
Nyet's Fave: "Easy Way Out"

Now, the other half of my brain has dived into this of late:

Chinese Democracy

Guns N' Roses (Kinda) (2008)

1. Chinese Democracy
2. Shackler's Revenge
3. Better
4. Street of Dreams
5. If the World
6. There Was a Time
7. Catcher in the Rye
8. Scraped
9. Riad n' the Bedouins
10. Sorry
11. I.R.S.
12. Madagascar
13. This I Love
14. Prostitute

So now that I've listened to this 34 times,² I have a much better handle on the individual songs. No full review treatment here, just a song by song account - the overall gist is still the same: this is grandiose rock grandeur at its ludicrous best. It doesn't touch the original lineup stuff, it wasn't worth a fifteen year wait, but it certainly rocks my face off and gets my blood vibrating anew.

Chris nailed "Chinese Democracy" when he noted that this was an overt attempt at a "cannon shot intro."It's pretty silly and actually doesn't quite deliver the badassness with those opening power chords as intended. Still, having the intro include a fade-in of a screeching Axl is entirely appropriate, and as is true of pretty much the entire album, the guitar soloing on this one scorches.

"Shackler's Revenge" is in the running for my favorite track. Or maybe just the awesome, disco beat "Don't ever try to tell me" pre-chorus is my favorite single movement. And the stop everything break and launch into a chugging hellfire job is quite nice, too. So let's call it my favorite pure rock track.

"Better" features a weird sing songy intro that recurs throughout the song and a chorus that was ripped from Chris Cornell's back pages. Oh, and a sick chunk down bridge. And I may forget to mention this in every song, but Axl is in over the top form throughout. Damn. In addition to the pyrotechnics, the end of this song contains a solo that gets back to the soulful aspect that Slash always had. Good stuff.

"The Blues Street of Dreams" comes straight out of the "Breakdown" school of optimistic, romantic, majestic, schizophrenic G'N'R piano-driven rocker/ballad/symphonies. You may or may not know that "Breakdown" is one of my favorite songs; I am a sucker for the effective melodrama and the "aw shucks, Axl is really a poetry writing tearful boy after all" side of things. So I dig this song while entirely noting how ridiculous it is.

Someone (CK?) mentioned that "If the World" sounds like a James Bond song, and now I can't hear it without immediately thinking that. Crazy Spanish guitar, wah wah funk groove mash up that somehow works, with the usual "seriously?" caveat.

"There Was a Time" is another bloated would-be masterpiece hoisted on its own violin bow. And yet it, too, works. Most notable - killer soul-solos in the middle, and some of the best redemptive Axl-wailing since "Rocket Queen."I'm not sure the three minute outro was necessary, but they probably said the same thing about :Hey Jude"... I kid, I kid.

"Catcher in the Rye" = another rock redemptive piano epic. Wow this album is full of... them. As if Axl heard my "Hey Jude" joke, this one features a bunch of Nah-nah-nah vocals . And yeah, it does it for me. Hairs standing on end as this one closes despite it all.

By now, you should get the point - the middle of this disc is an onslaught of these EPIC pieces, all of which share generally the same features but somehow manage to pull it off. Really impressive.

Unfortunately (at least imho), the first clunker comes in "Scraped." After a neat intro, it's just a boring rumbling bass riff number with embarrassing lyrics and yes, that pre-chorus that CK noted sounds a whole lot like Extreme's "Get the Funk Out." Weak, the only track I ever find myself skipping.

"Riad n' the Bedouins" is a fast-paced crazy times rocker that rights the ship a bit, only to be followed by "Sorry," forever thought of by me as the Mexican Vampire Song. "But I don't want to do it!" Just a weird minor key ballad with "No Quarter " warble keyboard lines and just a dumb set of lyrics. The whole thing is made up for a little by a schwank outro, but really, 6:14 of this weirdness just drags the album down.

Thank goodness that I.R.S. follows, a solid rock number that alternates between acoustic reflection and an Axl-vocal screaming guitar workout. Good! "Madagascar" follows, one of the earliest of these tracks to be leaked. Yes, that is a french horn you hear in the intro. Yes, those are "Pastime Paradise" organ beats you hear driving this. And yes, that is the MLK, Jr. "I Have a Dream" speech mashed with the same Cool Hand Luke quote from "Civil War" you hear in the insane pastiche section. "Madagascar" is the exemplar of the album; if someone asks "what do you mean, "overblown?," you can really just play them this track.

"This I Love" is almost a straight, Phantom of the Opera style piano ballad. I just thought of that comparison as I typed it, but it is apt. This sounds like it was stolen from a late 20th century musical. Of course, Axl is not satisfied with that, and goes falsetto cat screech over the top in that way only he can. And yeah, there's a wailer solo over the top. But if it weren't for Axl, this might strike you as a weird piece of adult contemporary. Meh.

The closer, "Prostitute," has some sweet singing, just achingly sincere. It's another EPIC piece with piano and symphony and a gigantic punctuated bridge. And a very, very low-key exit to the song / album. Decent closer, but this probably could have been exchanged with something in the epic sequence that would have served the Trevor Hoffman role better.

Overall? Very good, I suppose. The major fault of the album is that the first seven tracks are decidedly better than the second seven; Side B is just way too spotty and full of moments ("Sorry," MLK Speeches, Andrew Lloyd Webber ballad) that make you say "Eh?" So on my scale, where Appetite gets a 95, Use Your Illusion I a 85, Lies a 70, UYI II a 60, Chinese Democracy probably comes in the 75-80 range; I still haven't decided. I'm sure you'll just die waiting.

Status: Recommended
Nyet's Fave: "Shackler's Revenge"

So there - YEAH! Two oddly paired albums reviewed in one post! That's been the weirdness of my last month music-wise. Hope you enjoyed the incogerently written account.

¹ This is obviously a lie as I have spun Chinese Democracy at least 23 times in the past three weeks. The truth is a slippery fish.

²See?