By the way, what the hell does Dizzy Reed add to songs such as "Welcome to the Jungle" with his tambourines or hand drums? Doesn't he get paid the same whether he plays on all songs or not?

Where's Izzy?

I came up with the idea that I haven't played guitar in years and I wanted to start playing again. My goal is to learn Appetite for Destruction. I started listening to the guitar tracks and figured out two things. First off, how blues-influenced Izzy and Slash's guitar playing is. And second, it finally clicked to me what I kept trying to think about Conor Oberst every time I see him and it's that he reminds me of Izzy Stradlin. His hair, style, and character is very similar.

Anyway, I started listening to Izzy Stradlin and the Juju Hounds' album and really like it. It's like a better Exile on Main Street. I can't believe how poor of a guitar player I really am. I mean, I can learn things and play them well, but if I were put in a band to jam, I really couldn't do much. WAtching Gn'R performances, Izzy and Slash effortlessly play their songs that I struggle with. At times I cannot even get the rhythm in my head to learn them. Although it has been years since I've tried to learn a song. My plan is to try one song per month while working on scales every week. This is something I tried to do everyday in eigth grade but got into punk rock and ditched the progressive guitar playing and stuck with simple power chords and solos; another way I believe punk rock ruined my life.

Some other things I've noticed, one which goes along with seeing Motley Crue, Poison, and the New York Dolls is that these guys put way more into their shows than 90% of the bands out there in the past 20 years. All their energy and excitement is put into their one to two hour performances. Secondly, Gn'R play all their songs. Every song of theirs are songs they genuinely love and believe in. In many shows I've been watching, they pretty much cover most of their discography; not just the hits. Even one show Axl says that they have a list of most of their songs and they're picking them as they go through so people won't say things like, "This is the same show from Ohio." I like that. And every song they play they play it like it's their hit single at the time. I like bands like this. It's the same description Larry Livermore mentions to no end (admittedly) about the first Green Day show in front of a few people and they played it as if the Beatles at Shea stadium. Rollins got that from Dukowski as well. It didn't matter if one person was there to see them. You play your ass off. That one person came to see you. That's the ethic I like and why I could never fake things so I would never do anything I genuinely didn't believe in. Songs that I barely liked, I like now after seeing them perform it. There's a Chicago show and the first encore song is "So Fine." Good song, but hardly one that any Gn'R fan would know the words to, let alone just a radio hits fan.