Slash

So Slash is playing one of the hits – it might have been Rocket Queen, the anthemic final track from Appetite for Destruction. The crowd up the front has the devil horns going. We’re a couple of dozen rows back, just standing around. I get a tap on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” says a guy who looks like he’s just come the trading floor, “but I can’t see a thing.” Pfft. Where are we? The Louvre?

But it’s to be expected of fans at modern rock concerts, attended as they are by middle-class tossers pretending they’re still as rebellious as when they first listened to an album by the ageing millionaire and recovering drug addict with the guitar on stage. I know this because I am one of those middle-class tossers.

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He hasn’t exactly reached for his pipe and slippers but some of the background to Saul “Slash” Hudson’s first solo album is decidedly befitting a man in his mid-40s. The stories behind the collaborations with a laundry list of rock ‘n’ roll legends aren’t littered with trashed penthouse suites, but as another ageing genre pioneer - Billy Joel - might say, it’s still rock and roll to me.

According to Music Radar Slash had sent a tape to Iggy Pop, hoping he would sing on it. Iggy rang Slash and, when he got the answering machine, proceeded to leave a message of him singing the track down the phone with the tape playing on the stereo in the background. “We’re all gonna die,” rings the chorus, “So let’s get high.” Old school, right?

Until you get to the next line. “We’re all gonna die, so let’s be nice.” All together: Naawww. (Note: not all the lyrics are this mainstream. Parental advisory applies, as in do not play in front of parents, especially the mother-in-law.)

Continue reading "Slash the album: a guitar hero’s return to form" »