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- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
I'm going to assume that being in a rock band is different, but as a sax player I have my set up and I like it that way. I wouldn't use different saxes on different songs just because I could. Although, if I had a massive budget I might rent a bunch for fun (then claim I used them in the recording process so I wouldn't get in trouble). Other than switching mouthpieces once or twice I'd keep the same set-up.
Yeah I know what you mean, although i'm more likely to experiment on a recording than live, live I want what I always use and know exactly how it will react. I think it depends on the songs too...like if you have songs with a bit of variation in them, it can be fun to mess around, expecially with rhythm parts to get different effects.
It probably depends on the players too. I mean Slash always sounds a certain way and so you'd expect him to stick to tried and true gear (although he did mess around a bit with Libertad I read), whereas someone like Tom Morello that uses lots of different textures and effects is more likely to show up with a trailor of shit.
I'm somewhere in the middle...for some tones...especially lead guitar...i'm from the school of "If it ain't broke don't fix it"...but then again...sometimes taking the effort to do things specially really makes recordings amazing. I remember watching a doco on Metallica's Black Album and seeing all the different stuff going on in those songs, different instruments, placement of mikes, amps etc etc, and it really sounds pretty amazing what they came out with.
Although I think you can go too far as well, at the end of the day a lot of tone is as much in the touch as it is in the gear. That said, I really wanna get that sound of the solo in "If the World", i think it's bucket....sounds amazing when it kicks in.
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
cant find it anywhere...
You didn't look at the Shackler thread below this one? 
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
I'm hoping with the next album he just let's it flow, and truely doesn't give a crap what happens. That's was music is, it's just fucking off in G, and sometimes it's really fuckin' good.
Yeah, just the let the damn thing flow. Record a song in two-takes. (like thats gonna happen). Just play with the shit and fuck off in the end. But the next album is just like this one...it's basically done. All of them. To get what you and I want they need to start making a new one. A brand new one.
Granted recording a song in a few takes, hasn't exactly equaled magic in the careers of the previous GN'R members, but I think a happy medium is somewhere in there. Maybe not as quick as them, but not as long as Axl, something like that.
I'd love to see GN'R start pumping out albums, annually. But it's probably a pipe dream. 
monkeychow wrote:James Lofton wrote:Yeah, I don't think it can even be called into question that others took the project to the extreme as well. The whole thing was absurd, so why not take it to a new level? Great example of this is Buckethead with his chicken coop, dog shit, and porn. Obviously the guy doesn't live in those conditions, but since he could be excessive, why not?
Yeah and I guess as much as I was kinda bagging brain for it then, I guess that mostly comes from my lack of understanding about how different drum sounds are created. Like i'm a guitarist and even on my crappy home recordings and demos for my band, if i have a particualr idea of a sound in my head, it can be really challanging to try and make it go that way on the tape. So i can relate to how this must have been when on a massive scale like a real band like GNR, and when we're talking about albums that will become famous and live on after death etc (unlike my stuff that lives on my pc LOL). Anwyay so i guess to be honest...as much as i'm sort of knocking it....if i was playing on a GNR album....and I was told to do whatever was necessary...I'd have like a ton of different guitars, amps, pedals and whatever else on hand that would aid the process too!!!
I'm going to assume that being in a rock band is different, but as a sax player I have my set up and I like it that way. I wouldn't use different saxes on different songs just because I could. Although, if I had a massive budget I might rent a bunch for fun (then claim I used them in the recording process so I wouldn't get in trouble). Other than switching mouthpieces once or twice I'd keep the same set-up.
To make this remotely relevant to Guns I guess I'd say I like the same set-up to keep some flow and continuity within the album. Try to keep the tone of the album mostly the same. And ChiDem does struggle with staying cohesive as an album.
Yeah, I don't see that ever happening with Axl at the controls. People complained about cohesiveness with the Illusion albums, and that's pretty much Axl's Queen-ism with GN'R. He likes his albums to be a mixture of a bunch of different styles, which as a Queen fan, I like. It doesn't exactly have to have a theme.
But in Chinese's case, it really does have a theme when you think about it. Rockers = Axl Zombie / Ballads = Illusion III. Within the genre of the song, they're pretty consistent in theme on the album. Although alot of people enjoy the amount of beautiful songs on CD, that's one of the issues with the album, when hit certain areas with the ballads. You got like Street of Dreams, If The World, TWAT & Catcher... then Maddy, This I Love & Prostitute. Regardless of what one defines as 'epic', you've got these big orchestrated ballads (obviously), and they're all back-to-back-to-back and sometimes it's like an OD on 'richness' as Pitman called it.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
Granted recording a song in a few takes, hasn't exactly equaled magic in the careers of the previous GN'R members, but I think a happy medium is somewhere in there.
Well recording in a few takes can be magical. Slash recorded the guitar parts and solos to the Alice Cooper song "Vengance is Mine" in one day, and I think they're perfect for that song.
But that doesn't mean it's right for everyone to work that way. Axl seems to be a deep thinker and it could easily be that he finds giving his ideas time to gestate yeilds superior results to what he might pen improvisationally.
Everyone has their own creative process, and I endorse them doing whatever works in the end for them. In my opinion, somewriting wise, the CD songs are brilliant songs and amongst Axl's best work, so while the process was frustrating for fans, I'd say it was sucessful on an artistic level.
So i wouldn't recomend Axl change his creative process, but I'd love to see some of the business side of things run differently. In the past it sounds like a lot of business stuff and legal issues have got in the way of Axl doing his thing and the band moving forward, and I'd love to see the GNR machine streamline imn that regard. Hopefully azoff or whatever will see that happen. It certainly seems that since he took the helm things have impoved (comunication has increased, an album is out, signs point to a tour). I'd like to see things get even more "traditional" - like new merch for this band, and I know I say it in every thread, but shots of Axl and Bumble and DJ and the guys together, couple of photo shoots would be awesome. Stuff like that. But I guess as Axl says...he doesn't work for me...so we'll have to see what happens.
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
Then I'll send out a 'thank you' to the guy for transcribing that watermarked crap.
Did you go blind while doing it?
I could barely read it and skipped over huge chunks. A very cool thing for you to put in the effort at a transcription.
Thanks.
I actually have some pretty good OCR software that did most of the hard work (after I got rid of the watermark).
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
Axlin08 wrote:Granted recording a song in a few takes, hasn't exactly equaled magic in the careers of the previous GN'R members, but I think a happy medium is somewhere in there.
Well recording in a few takes can be magical. Slash recorded the guitar parts and solos to the Alice Cooper song "Vengance is Mine" in one day, and I think they're perfect for that song.
But that doesn't mean it's right for everyone to work that way. Axl seems to be a deep thinker and it could easily be that he finds giving his ideas time to gestate yeilds superior results to what he might pen improvisationally.
Everyone has their own creative process, and I endorse them doing whatever works in the end for them. In my opinion, somewriting wise, the CD songs are brilliant songs and amongst Axl's best work, so while the process was frustrating for fans, I'd say it was sucessful on an artistic level.
So i wouldn't recomend Axl change his creative process, but I'd love to see some of the business side of things run differently. In the past it sounds like a lot of business stuff and legal issues have got in the way of Axl doing his thing and the band moving forward, and I'd love to see the GNR machine streamline imn that regard. Hopefully azoff or whatever will see that happen. It certainly seems that since he took the helm things have impoved (comunication has increased, an album is out, signs point to a tour). I'd like to see things get even more "traditional" - like new merch for this band, and I know I say it in every thread, but shots of Axl and Bumble and DJ and the guys together, couple of photo shoots would be awesome. Stuff like that. But I guess as Axl says...he doesn't work for me...so we'll have to see what happens.
I agree with the concept of what you're saying, but I can't help but to argue that no fan of GN'R can be happy with the creative process either.
Anytime it takes 17 years to get another album of new studio material, from any artist, I don't care if your the Jesus Christ of music, you're talking an over abundant amount of time to record and release an album. If any artist in the future needs a reference point for how it NEVER works out, see Smile and Chinese Democracy. Both albums became mythic if not legendary punchlines, and were both massive anti-climaxes by the time they reached the listening audience, but in the artist's defense they were not bad albums. This perfectionism approach just does not work.
We can all give Axl a break and say "he had to rebuild what Guns N' Roses was, to be here today", which I totally understand. We understand now it's Axl's NIN, and it's a one-man band, and that's cool too. Imo, there's no reason to not see a more frequent studio output from Guns at this point, and unless a major lineup change occurs for the positive, for some people like me, it's all about the albums at this point, and not so much about live performances. It isn't like Slash or Bucket are there, even though Axl remains one of the world's great rock talents.
I totally agree on the business aspect. If they can combine better business with more new material in the near future, this and can come back imo, and be relevant in the rock scene, as well as truely break down that wall for a whole new generation of Guns fans, to disassociate with the old Guns.
jmo
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
you have to have output to be relevant. you have to have output to become relevant after being irrelevant from 15 years. Axl knows this and/or is sorrounded by people that know this (i.e. azoff). I still maintain my point that as the cd saga dragged on axl/gnr probably realized this one album wasn't gonna jetison the band back to super stardom. I have a feeling material was saved for another album and/or creating a brand new album in far less time, after figuring out who's in the band, became a priority.
if axl doesn't want stardom i still thinks he wants to release music. i would be amazed if we don't see another album/s or if it takes more than 4 years at the most.
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
Only one thing can take them back to superstardom, and I don't even really think that could do it anymore other than as a nostalgia act. It's time to face it, GnR is done and has been for years. That may have happened anyway had the original band not split, but NO band has ever accomplished anything after such a monumental start and disappearing for 15 years only to re-emerge with a completely different band.
I have no idea why anybody expected GnR to be different. The public wants what they consider to be the real GnR. Nothing Axl or Azoff does is going to change that. I said this years ago: very, very few kids are looking for a man approaching 50 to save rock. No kids = no commercial success = no record contract. The end is very near.
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
Isn't it possible; last year, after the complaints about "Death Magnetic" being mastered too loudly, that's we ended up with what we got?
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Brain in Modern Drummer (May 2009)
I agree with the concept of what you're saying, but I can't help but to argue that no fan of GN'R can be happy with the creative process either.
Anytime it takes 17 years to get another album of new studio material, from any artist, I don't care if your the Jesus Christ of music, you're talking an over abundant amount of time to record and release an album.
I agree with what you're saying to an extent, especially if the delay was related to achieving pefection. But I think a lot of the time was dealing with other crap. But I'm just wondering how it works artisticly. What i mean is:
We don't actually know how often Axl writes songs. Like in my own band, I can write a song one day, and I'm not sure when the next will come, sometimes it's the next day, sometimes it's 3 months away. Can be longer. And forcing it won't work.
We know some songs such as November Rain were written years before their release...maybe it's axl's way to write a song and develop it over time...
Now granted 17 years might be going too far...but what I mean is....Axl has always made his records his way, and that's the output we have and became fans of. If he released a record every year, or every day, who know's what it would be like? It could be amazingly good. Or it might turn out to lower the quality...it's kind of untested.....
What i'm getting at is, there's a lot of bullshit in this band, but one thing that's been consistant so far in my opinion is the quality of the final output musically. Changing the artistic process risks messing with that.
