I’ve only seen Guns N’ Roses once before, back in 1991 before the “Use Your Illusion” albums came out. The only two line up changes were Matt Sorum on drums, replacing Steven Adler and the addition of keyboardist Dizzy Reed. The show was pretty good, even though the band didn’t take the stage until much later.

Fast forward twenty years with a new line up that is now eight members strong, with the only two members holding over are Axl Rose and Dizzy Reed.

Axl

The idea that a band can keep going without what has become known as the classic lineup is nothing new. Lots of bands have a revolving door of members come and go. But GnR is held to a different standard. Watching this new line up live showed this die-hard fan that even new members can really play well. The show started late, but was on time [the band took the stage at exactly 11pm]. All of the band members started at full throttle.

Axl and DJ Ashba

DJ Ashba is the lead guitarist, a position once held by Slash. Other than the missing top hat, this guitarist proved to be a phenom and quite active on the stage. I was impressed by this guy, who also shreds for Nikki Sixx’ band Sixx:A.M. not to mention the early 2000 group Beautiful Creatures.

Axl on piano

The songs were varied, from the opener “Chinese Democracy” moving right into “Welcome To The Jungle” with the concert ending with “Paradise City” – with a diverse set of other GnR classics to newer songs all in between. Two AC/DC covers “Riff Raff” and “Whole Lotta Rosie” and a piano medley of Elton John starters by Axl made this three hour show rather enjoyable. Axl’s vocals were top notch for a 49-year-old singer. No real missteps here.

End Of Show – Take a Bow

My overall thoughts going into this show were wondering how I would keep thinking about the missing classic lineup during the show. But as the lights came on after the show, I really was quite impressed at what Axl and Co. can perform. Tommy Stinson, Richard Fortus, Bumblefoot, Frank Ferrer were all on top of their talents, coming together to make for a night [and early morning] of great music.

Miniature Tigers

Charlie, Algernon, Rick

On a more toned down rock and roll note, the indie band known as Miniature Tigers played an after midnight show at Bar Deluxe later in the week. Lead singer Charlie Brand is joined by Rick, Algernon and newest member Brandon to kick up a nice set of tunes.

Brandon on bass

“Gold Skull”, “Japanese Woman”, “Sex on the Regular” and “Boomerang” worked well. There were a few mixing board mishaps, but other than that, this band proved to me once again that they are not to be missed when they come to town.

If you are a fan of Slash in any of the bands he’s been in, this is an album to check out. It was recorded live in his home town of Stoke-on-Trent, England.

Track Listing

1. “Been There Lately” (from Ain’t Life Grand)
2. “Nightrain” (from Appetite for Destruction)
3. “Ghost” (from Slash)
4. “Mean Bone” (from Ain’t Life Grand)
5. “Back from Cali” (from Slash)
6. “Rocket Queen” (from Appetite for Destruction)
7. “Civil War” (from Use Your Illusion II)
8. “Nothing to Say” (from Slash)
9. “Starlight” (from Slash)
10. “Promise” (from Slash)
11. “Doctor Alibi” (from Slash)
12. “Speed Parade” (from Ain’t Life Grand)
13. “Watch This” (from Slash)
14. “Beggars & Hangers-On” (from It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere)
15. “Patience” (from G N’ R Lies)
16. “Guitar Solo / Godfather Theme”
17. “Sweet Child o’ Mine” (from Appetite for Destruction)
18. “Slither” (from Contraband)
19. “By the Sword” (from Slash)
20. “Mr. Brownstone” (from Appetite for Destruction)
21. “Paradise City” (from Appetite for Destruction)

This album is a great work of production. I first heard a couple of the songs on Eddie Trunk Live on SiriusXM Boneyard 38. All parts of Slash’s bands are represented here, with a heavy emphasis on the first Guns n’ Roses album. Myles Kennedy is no Axl Rose, but he’s quite able to hit some nice high notes and appears to handle the stage like a rock frontman should.

Definitely an album that I highly recommend for any rock and Slash fan.

Here are four tracks that are memorable to my many hours of listening to the radio – from classic rock to modern alternative.

Steve Miller Band – “Jungle Love”

I remember hearing this song all the time on the rock radio station. The line “where everything is peaches and cream” and the guitar twinge that follows are permanently stuck in head, not to mention the whistling that both starts and finishes the song.

“Jungle Love”

Guns N’ Roses – “Patience”

To be honest, this is my least favorite song from this great band. Combining cheesy and horrible lyrics with Axl’s whistle has been burned into my memory from the countless times I heard it played on just about every pop and rock station some 23 years ago. Which also explains why I put the YouTube version here – I don’t own this song.

Guns N’ Roses – “Patience”

Supertramp “Goodbye Stranger”

From the 1979 album, “Breakfast In America”, this song has the least amount of whistling of these four, but since I really enjoy hearing this song, I wanted to include it here.

“Goodbye Stranger”

Peter, Bjorn and John “Young Folks”

A giant alternative hit, these guys showed the younger generation what a whistle can do for a song. It’s very catchy, almost to the point of “please stop” but then you hear it again and start to whistle along.

“Young Folks”

What are some other songs that use the power of the whistle that you can think of? Chat away below.

Snowy Sunday Ep. 008 from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.

For the YouTube version, click on this link: Snowy Sunday Episode 008

Happy New Year

It’s a new year and not only does that mean snow on a regular basis [at least we hope so], but it also means weekly videos out here – each and every Sunday [sometimes bright and early, other times as late as this one is getting posted].

I also am going to make better efforts to post out here more often. This twice a week thing is getting to me, and I’m getting behind on posts that I wanted to post out here before now. I’m not really lazy… honest. I just let too much get in the way…. and trust me… that’s pretty easy to do.

So let’s hope I can get more posts out each week for 2009. Wish me luck.

Nokia E71

As with Kapgar, I also received a Nokia E71 for review from WOM World. Here are my thoughts on the two weeks that I’ve used this device.

It’s been sometime since I last used a Nokia phone. I was with AT&T then [before they became Cingular and morphed back into the AT&T they are now]. The phone used the older TDMA protocol and I was all excited about being able to text and send an actual email message from it. That was over five years ago. For the last 2 1/2 years, I’ve been using a Treo smartphone. So sending email and texting is kids play now. But one of my biggest complaints about my phone is the size, specifically the thickness of the phone. The Nokia E71 is not thick at all. It’s very svelte and it lives by the statement “Thin Is In!”

Thin and Shiny…. very nice.

I enjoyed carrying around the E71 and it felt good in my hands. Call clarity was great as was the ease of use in making calls and accessing my list of contacts on my AT&T prepaid SIM card. Data-wise, it was very nice to have a phone that was 3G capable. Even nicer was to have a phone that also had WiFi on it. After connecting up to the free wireless access at Starbucks [I get 2 hours a month before getting charged], I was able to browse the web at nice broadband speeds. Typing on the tactile keyboard was very comfortable, with only a few mistyped words – even when texting at fast speeds. The keys felt good on my fingers and it wasn’t awkward at all.

Battery life was very good. I could go almost three days on a charge. The charger that came with the phone was European, so I had to use an adapter to plug into the 120V U.S. plugs. Charging took under 4 hours, which is about average. The screen was set to dim every minute or so, requiring a key press to bring it back to life. After a few minutes of no use, the keys would lock, which is nice if you have the phone without a case in your pocket, not accidently calling someone while you are walking around.

There were some beefs I had with the phone. The biggest and most glaring is not being able to charge it from USB. I am a firm believer that any phone that is made today needs to be able to charge when it’s plugged into a USB port. I can’t tell you how many times over the years that phone chargers got left behind in the hotel room. On the usability side, the browser was awkward to use, taking me several times to remember where the GO TO URL setting was. Bookmarking a site was also a bit cumbersome, but I got to know that route after several sites.

Overall, I liked the phone and it was made very well, had great voice quality, speedy data on both 3G and WiFi and the keyboard was very adaptable. All Nokia needs to do is add USB charging and update some of the usability of it’s web browser and they’ve got a winner on their hands. Thanks to WOM World for allowing me to test and use this phone. I hope to have a Nokia N97 to use sometime in the near future. [very BIG hint]

Chinese Democracy

When a band takes 17 years to release an album of new material, you are expecting some sort of masterpiece to hit the stores and every single man, woman and child will flock en masse to plunk down their $13 to experience this astonishing work of brilliance. Instead, we were given an album of 14 new tracks that vaguely sound like the Guns N’ Roses we knew from 1991, with some over-produced melodies and tongue-in-cheek references by the lead vocalist in his struggles to release a new album.

If it wasn’t out of pure curiosity, I would have given up on this after the last four promises of a release date. But thanks to my curious musical mindset, I wanted to hear what this had to offer. First, I had to erase any expectation of hearing the riffs of Slash. Slash has left the building. Instead, we have multiple guitarists [Richard Fortus, Bumblefoot, Buckethead, Robin Finck] filling in with their axe work to help make this epic album something worth listening to. And to be perfectly honest, the work is noticed. And it’s not bad, almost expert in execution. Even if over-production took over, so be it. Musically, this album isn’t bad. Vocally, it’s lacking and sometimes in a big way.

Now Axl Rose has a very distinctive voice. It’s one of those voices and styles that stand out. But as with Slash on guitar, don’t be expecting the vocals that made Appetite for Destruction the debut smash it was. Oh, this is Axl… there’s no mistaking that. But his vocals are beyond raw. They are trying to do different things that shouldn’t have been done. Don’t expect to hear “Night Train” Instead, expect a few train wrecks like “Catcher In The Rye”, “Scrapped” and “Madagascar”, just to name a few. Embarrassing is the best way to define these over-produced messes of music.

Not all is lost. There are some bright moments mixed in here: the title track, “Better” “Street Of Dreams”, “There Was A Time” and “I.R.S” sound good and well put together. Axl and his collection of randomly put-togethers figured out how to make some decent tracks.

I’m not saying I hate this album. I actually think it may grow on me over time, but after the first ten spins, it’s still not grabbing me the way their original efforts did. If you are curious in the least bit, go out and give Axl and Geffen some money. Otherwise, spend it on another artist.

Sirius and XM: Together

I’ve been a Sirius subscriber for almost three years now. My wife bought me a radio and gave it to me before Christmas in 2005, making sure I was ready for Howard Stern when he moved from restrictions of terrestrial radio to the uncensored airwaves of satellite radio. XM wasn’t even an option for me.

Fast forward to present day. Sirius and XM have merged together, creating a single company [still operating on two different satellite systems] with almost 20 million subscribers. As was to be expected, there’s some duplication in programming. You know this is going to change stuff. And it did, with both good and bad results.

The Good

Most of the Sirius channels didn’t change their names. Familiar still are channels like Classic Vinyl, Classic Rewind, 1st Wave, Alt Nation and Hair Nation. This was good because I never understood the XM channel names. Ethyl, Fred and Lucy were confusing to know what kind of music they played. I’m glad they did not make the cut [sorry loyal XM fans]. Some channels did get renamed and it works very well. Channels 4-9 are what I call the decade channels. 40′s on 4, 50′s on 5, 60′s on 6, 70′s on 7, 80′s on 8 and 90′s on 9 are all great efforts in covering six decades of music. I changed my presets to start at 40′s on 4 and then added another preset for Classic Vinyl, so I can channel surf my way through rock and alternative stations while driving. This is a nice change.

The Bad

There’s not too much bad, in my opinion. First on the list is the heavy metal channel on Sirius that was called Hard Attack. It took on the XM name of Liquid Metal. A cheesy name, but at least you know what kind of music you are going to hear. Then there’s all of these specialty channels that got lumped together on different channels. Sirius had the AC/DC and Led Zeppelin channels, which are not bad, but they replaced the Punk channel, which I hope makes a return soon. XM brought over Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, which are ok, but you can hear most of their music on the Classic Vinyl channel. Then there was Left of Center, which was Sirius’ independent artist channel. It took on an XM merged name and is now called Sirius XM U. If you didn’t already know what kind of music they played, this would be a station I would have skipped over. It’s the same music as Left of Center and the same DJs, so at least they didn’t fuck with that. But I still think the name is odd.

Howard is still at channels 100 and 101. Playboy Radio moved from channel 198 to 98, which actually is nice that it’s one over from Howard 100. [there is no channel 99] Sirius subscribers can get the Best of XM, which includes The Virus [Opie and Anthony] Oprah, Bob Edwards and other channels. XM subscribers can get the Best of Sirius, which includes Martha Steward, NFL, NBA and other channels. Howard 100 and 101 are $6.99 a month extra on XM. Ouch! A bit much, but if you only have XM and you like Howard Stern, then you get a lot of programming for that $7 a month.

I am remaining a Sirius subscriber for the long haul, mostly because I enjoy the commercial-free music and the Howard Stern channels. I pay by the year for two radios, which comes out to be around $220. That’s a lot if you compare it to free radio you get on the FM dial, but I think it’s worth it to pay for all of the programming you get.

This Is The End….

… of another edition of Random Leakage. Thanks for visiting and we’ll see you all next time.