TAKE ME DOWN TO JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #293!

Guns N’ Roses – Chinese Democracy (Geffen) :: Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Two ways of taking that.

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Slash featuring Myles Kennedy – Made In Stoke 24/7/11: Special Edition (Armoury) :: Look, I’ll be the first one to admit that I ditched Slash’s former band after the inexcusably ineffectual and downright embarrassingly execrable “The Spaghetti Incident?” album—and the fact that they had the additional appalling taste to include one of Charles Manson’s hackneyed songs on it as a yellow bellied “hidden track” didn’t help matters much either.

I could go on, so I will. It’s morally bad enough that gratuitous gore hounds like Roberta Zombie and Brian Warner have actually stooped to sample cheerleader Chuck and his cadre of convicted murderers on their albums, but at least they never added insult to injury by actually recording one of his songs. Luckily for them, they were too young to have lived in Los Angeles in the ’60s because you can bet that Manson wouldn’t have spared any of their hip little hides had they hung their hats there back then—right, Trent Reznor? Record any albums at “Le Pig” lately? Oh, that’s right, I almost forgot; you literally don’t live there anymore, do you? Well, at least you got to take the front door with you as an unhinged souvenir before you left. Next best thing to actually having been there that night, huh? But I digress.

Meanwhile, this live twofer by the cleverly named Slash goes a long way towards almost rectifying that earlier ethical audio indiscretion because, from the iconic Rock God cover photo—which is duplicated in jean-creaming teen dream detail on the accompanying Rock God Mini-Poster that’s included with every album—to the bonus video disc containing live concert and interview footage, this really is about as solid a live rock ’n’ roll record as you could ask for.

That said, it does suffer from the one niggling problem that’s endemic to many a post-band break-up live solo recording: namely, that the glut of classic Guns songs contained herein, while played with note-perfect aplomb, really do make you wish that it was Mr. Rose who was up there on stage next to Slash instead of Mr. Kennedy. The good news, however, is that the singer does such an admirable job of aping Axl that you’ll end up enjoying this one for what it is instead of what it isn’t—a sure sign of benevolent British Theocracy in action.

SIZZLING—AND HOW—PLATTER ON PERMANENT ROTATION IN THE HIT PARADE OF HELL’S WURLITZER: Charles Manson – Lie: The Love And Terror Cult (self released) :: Back in 1970, a friend of mine actually owned an original pressing of this album—not the subsequent ESP-Disc—which explains how I knew over forty years ago why old swastika skull had no choice but to self-release his own record. I mean, even Screaming Lord Sutch was signed to a real record label.

Be seeing you!