Someone sent us the above via Twitter, but I already forget the guy’s handle. Sorry, dude!

In October, Axl Rose added “Estranged” back into Guns N’ Roses’ regular setlist for the first time since 1993. Even though everyone makes fun of that song’s ridiculous music video, it was a smart move — at the GN’R show in New Jersey I attended last month, the song got a roar of approval from the crowd the moment the band played it. Axl’s Nu-GN’R has mostly ignored the Use Your Illusion era for the past decade, which is foolish, because while the critics may not love those albums, they sold seven million copies each. People wanna hear those songs.

And Rose must get it; that same night I saw him Jersey, he also performed “Don’t Cry,” which he hasn’t done in awhile, and now, this past weekend, he suddenly broke out “Civil War,” too. You can check out video below; the band actually sounds pretty good, even if, Jesus H. Christ, something really does need to be done about Dj Slashba (note the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips).

Interestingly enough, Slash has been doing “Civil War” with his solo band (Myles Kennedy + a bunch of random dudes) since last year. By way of comparison, you can check out his Gun Without Rose version after the jump.

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Speaking of Slash: Vince and I caught his solo tour last month, and, for me at least, the big surprise of the evening — besides Vince’s brilliant revelation that Slash should start transitioning from rock and metal into blues as he gets older — is that Myles Kennedy is actually pretty awesome. He’s got a terrific set of pipes and a really incredible amount of range, and he’s a great front man. I think I read somewhere that he turned down the chance to be the new singer for Velvet Revolver, which is a bummer, ’cause he’d clearly do a great job (to say nothing of the fact that he’d be able to help them play old GN’R tunes that require a higher vocal register than that of Mr. Scott Weiland, which is all I really care about at this point anyway).

So for now, we have to settle for Kennedy being the frontman for Creed without Wife Beater instead of Guns without Rose. And Alter Bridge’s latest, the cleverly titled AB III, is now streaming here.

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I think Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” was actually the first “life on the road” music video, but regardless of who created the genre, it existed before Guns N’ Roses’ Nigel Dick-directed clip for “Paradise City,” and has continued to exist long since. (A recent example would be DevilDriver’s video for “Fate Stepped In.”) And they seem to be a rite of passage in some sense — even Metallica have made one.

But there was a candid quality to “Paradise City” that, even if it was ultimately manufactured, felt real-enough to differentiate it from, say, Warrant’s video for “Heaven.” Jani Lane just looked right into the camera, and all the “home movie” footage looked like regular, glossy MTV footage with some kind of after-effect added in post, and, generally speaking, the whole thing just seemed pretty staged. Whether “Paradise City” was entirely authentic or not is beside the point; Dick did a top-notch job of making it feel authentic, which was enough to sell GN’R's image as a “real” band to kids like Vince and myself, who thought they were the cat’s pajamas.

In that context, it’s difficult to watch Slash’s new video for “Back to Cali” without thinking that it’s intended to be a direct call-back to “Paradise City” — it’s got the grainy B&W footage, the odd and unnecessary use of random Dutch angles, the playing in front of crowds disproportionate to the band’s current success (The “Paradise City” footage was actually filmed when GN’R was opening for Aerosmith; Slash seems to playing mostly European festivals in this video), etc. I don’t know who directed it and I’m not sure why he or she would make such a decision; kids who know Slash as “that dude from Velvet Revolver” won’t remember the “Paradise City” video and won’t care, and I don’t really think it’ll do much for the nostalgia of old bastards like me.

But, uh, whatever, I guess. “Back to Cali” is one of the better songs on Slash’s solo record; it’s basically just blues-based bar rock, which is to say, it plays to Mr. Saul Hudson’s strengths.

And here’s the “Paradise City” video, if you’re one of the aforementioned kids who have never seen it before…

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There are now six songs* available online from Slash’s Slash, his forthcoming sort-of-but-not-really solo debut (as though Slash’s Snakepit wasn’t a solo band) that I care far too much about. If you include bonus tracks, that’s actually more than a full third of the album; if you don’t include bonus track, it’s (obviously) even more.

So I now feel pretty confident in saying this album won’t be horrible, even if it’s obviously never going to live up to GN’R, and features appearances by Kid Rock, Fergie, and the girl from Maroon 5.

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So the Australian branch of iTunes has apparently uploaded thirty-second clips of all the songs from Slash’s forthcoming, self-titled solo album, and, of course, someone has uploaded all of those clips to YouTube. Gotta love the internet! So I thought we’d play one of our favorite games here at MetalSucks. It’s called “Let’s make premature judgments based on not very much actual music at all.” Listen to the clips in the video below, and then get my thoughts after the jump.

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With his virtually-guaranteed-to-suck new solo album coming out this spring, Slash now has to start thinking about putting a band together for a support tour. Since each song on the album features guest vocals by a different all-star singer, and Slash was never gonna be able to get ‘em all to do a whole tour with him, the logical solution was to hire a singer for his touring band.

And that singer is Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy.

This comes as a disappointment to me only because I hate Alter Bridge. As far as I can tell, Kennedy is actually a very talented singer. And he does vox on one of Slash’s solo tracks, “Starlight,” so I guess his presence makes sense; Lord knows Alter Bridge ain’t doin’ squat right now, so he might as well get paid.

Is Kennedy an electrifying live presence? I dunno, I ain’t done never seen him live. But I can tell you that this cover he does of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” isn’t as awful as I would have guessed it would be. It’s definitely a little touchy feely, but like I said, the dude can sing.

Slash promises to “announce the other band members shortly.”

-AR

Seriously. Because every time Vince or I make a snarky comment about the band or vocalist Myles Kennedy, one of you gets your panties in a twist. And while one of you gets your panties in a twist pretty much no matter what anyone at MetalSucks says about any given band, for some reason the outcry of support for Alter Bridge particularly irks me.

Yes, this band is better than Creed, but so is shingles. And Kennedy is a better singer than Wife Beater McGee, so but so was the dude singing on the subway this morning. Neither of these assertions negates the fact that Alter Bridge is boring, paint-by-numbers corporate rock. I just cannot take this shit seriously.

So if one of you Alter Bridge apologists has a legitimately good argument as to why I’m not giving this band a fair a shake, I’d love to hear it. Is there something really sophisticated about the music that I’m just not hearing? Are Kennedy’s lyrics, like, overwhelmingly moving or something? The whole thing is just way over my head, I guess.

I solicited suggestions for good Alter Bridge songs over Twitter, and longtime reader Richaod recommended this track “Blackbird.” I admit that it’s far better than I was expecting, but I also wanna be upfront: there is nothing about this song that makes me think I will ever feel any desire to listen to it again.

-AR

The Starbucks Incident

Yes, I am going to continue to bitch about Slash. I understand that Slash is not Jimi Hendrix but this might be the single biggest betrayal to my formative years since Metallica released everything they’ve released from Load on, and I need to mourn.

So. Some lady says that the following singers are all on Slash’s new solo album, How Could Taking My Cues from Carlos Santana Possibly Go Wrong? I have added my own thoughts because that’s what we do around here. Click to read more…

Fresh off the heels of the announcement that Creed will be reuniting this Summer (sigh…), Myles Kennedy — aka the actually-quite-talented singer 3/4ths of Creed hired to replace Scott Stapp in their new band Alter Bridge — issued a press release clarifying the future of that band. Thankfully MetalSucks is here to cut through the bullshit and give you the real skinny; we sent the offending press release over to the gifted MS Mansion Monkeys to parse, and the following is what we got back (our snarky commentary in bold:

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