Speaking of Civ.....

I have this weird thing with Civ where I used to really enjoy the simplified dumb down Civ Revolutions version they had on ps3.

I've seen proper civ people say it's too simple, but I found it was a good mix for casual gaming - I found Civ 6 on Ps4 to be kinda more work than fun in a way. It sorta felt like I had to do all these chores all the time within the game. Not sure if that was just me. hahaha.

This album was kinda a grower for me.

When I first heard it I was a little underwhelmed as part of me is always hoping for another huge "Thunderstruck" style single.

However I gave it a few spins the next day and started to really like a few of the tracks. It ended up being a worthy part of the catalogue for me even if it doesn't have my all time favourites on it.

Overall it's just nice to have Brian back.

I loved Axl/Dc - Axl's voice was amazing on those shows - but for Brian to go out from the band so suddenly and clearly unhappily after decades of kicking ass...phil to be locked down...then Cliff to retire....it was sort of an ignominious ending for such a glorious band.

So i'm just very happy that they've risen from the ashes so to speak.

I'm not really that much of a shared universe guy.

I read a few comics growing up but always preferred the stand alone kinda stories to the cross over type where they all exist in the same place.

I think its easier for suspension of disbelief, like you can imagine a world with a batman, or a superman, or a spiderman or whatever, but all of them at once moves into a rather unlikely place.

That said for a crossover I enjoyed BvS: Dawn of Justice, but I felt that they ruined the sequel as they tried to make it too much like marvel and lost all the edge.

As for marvel, I enoyed the early waves of them - like Ironman 1 and Captain America 1, and even Avengers 1 despite it being a shared flick - but now that it's gone on this long I find it gets hard to keep up with and full of kinda in-jokes.

Reminds me of growing up a starwars guy and then watching some startrek - I can enjoy it but it's kinda for people who have watched all the startrek.

Anyways I don't mind them - but its sad if this is ALL hollywood does. Like superhero stuff has a place. But if we get nothing but remakes, franchinse entries and so on - I wonder how we will ever find the next generation of auters.

How do you get a new Quentin Tarrintino or a new martin scorsese or someone of that nature in this system. How do you find a ridley scott, or hell, even a speilberg or cameron...if its all just going to be superheros and reboots.

^

Seriously though - it's normal for them to have some negotiation time.

Like CD came out in 2008 but re-recording was done in 2006 or so.

Slash started talking to Axl circa 2014 but reunion happened 2016.

AFD Deluxe came out 2018 not for 2017 anniversary.

I would factor in at least 12-18 months of business bullshit in anything associated with Axl's people.

I dunno if I'd blame the players for that.

I mean realistically, it's stupid when you have one of the foremost shredders in the world to use that person in a rhythm guitar role.

I would argue that the 3 guitar model in general was underutilising guys like Bumble and Bucket. Look at RIR3 - you see several times in songs where bucket is standing around on stage basically playing an open D chord - cos the rhythm and lead parts are being handled already - then every now and then he gets thrown something to do.

Same thing with bumble a lot of the time, or for that matter - watch what ashaba is doing when bumble plays a solo - they come up with cute ways to augment each others parts and stuff...but essentially you have 2 guys doing what is really 1 mans job. That's then made worse that some of the times the spare man is a guy like bumble or bucket who already has the guitar powers of several mortals already.

Another issue with the 3 guitar parts is a lot of the time the sound/visual people are playing catch up. In the songs where half of a songs solo is played by one and half by the other there's often a moment or two of nothing but rhythm as the sound dude frantically turns down one and up the other, and the video guy desperately searches the stage for who is playing. Hell watch close enough and you'll notice by the end of his tenure - bumble often raises his hand in the air like a kid in class right before he takes his solo turn. It's like he's signalling to the sound guy lifeguard "over here...over here"....hahahah....not sure if that's intentional or just coincidence..

.but either way I dunno if the problem is people not wanting to play rhythm....I mean it would be silly to bring bucket in for rhythm. Then bumble was brought in to emulate bucket parts. Maybe there's an arguement robin should be rhythm...but that's Axl's fault - matt suggested him for rhythm and Axl's slash hatred at the time made him say "no..move him to lead"..then no one had the balls to move him when bucket was better...they just bullied bucket instead like cowards....strange band GNR.

As for bucket...in terms of chops he has the chops to be anyone...but stylistically although he does play blues well here and there.. he tends more towards Paul Gilbert type stuff..and a lot of his trick type stunt stuff.....there's more to slash than the chops alone it's the psychology and mood he brings to the songs...that's what no one replicated.

I mean realistically from a guitar sound point of view GNR is slash's band. I know izzy wrote a bunch of riffs, but everything memorable and iconic guitar wise basically is Slash's style and comes from slash and the attitude Slash brings to the songs. That kinda aerosmith style he was emulating and all the rest. Aside from the vocals the GNR sound is slash's sound.