Robin Fink: 10 Years Apparently Arent Enough

[Brody]

Robin Finck is amazing.
I love his style and tone. He has an amazing presence.
I love how all his Les Pauls are customized... especially the gold one with only one humbucker.... I wish Gibson would come out with a signature model for him. I love how he moves his pickup selector down into one of the volume or tone spots.... just adds to his style. Kinda like how all guitar greats have an identifiable sound and image: Page, Slash, Townsend, Cobain, etc

COBAIN!!!! lmao he is just about as good as the dude from green day...... wow he sucks. guitar great my ass.

Yeah he is one of the most imitated guitar players on the planet, people steal from him all the time, he only has inspired millions.... but yeah, i guess youve done so much more so you know what your talking about.

dude seriously.. Im a big fan of Cobain but hes not a guitar legend at all..

[blueheart]

U dont get deemed a guitar GOD and? Rock hero without earning it.

Finck is nothing as long as he makes his living playing Slash and izzy's guitar parts.


When CD comes out, if he has stepped up to the plate and kicks total fucking ass, he will then get respect.

Until then, he wont.

DING DING DING DING DING

We have a Winnah!!!

so that means that Finck doesn t play good songs such as better, madagascar, there was a time, chinese democracy, irs etc... you have only heard him playing old gnr songs? wtf? get a grip...

Has CD been release yes or no? He isn't going to get praise from the general public by songs they've heard him playing live and that's it. Once CD is released and if there are great parts on by him then he will get the deserved praised until then he won't because like I said he isn't goign to get critical acclaim just from playing unreleased songs live.

I disagree with you... have you ever heard NIN?

[Jessica]

wether you like him or not, he doesn't go unnoticed 

[Origen]

U dont get deemed a guitar GOD and? Rock hero without earning it.

Finck is nothing as long as he makes his living playing Slash and izzy's guitar parts.


When CD comes out, if he has stepped up to the plate and kicks total fucking ass, he will then get respect.

Until then, he wont.

DING DING DING DING DING

We have a Winnah!!!

so that means that Finck doesn t play good songs such as better, madagascar, there was a time, chinese democracy, irs etc... you have only heard him playing old gnr songs? wtf? get a grip...

Has CD been release yes or no? He isn't going to get praise from the general public by songs they've heard him playing live and that's it. Once CD is released and if there are great parts on by him then he will get the deserved praised until then he won't because like I said he isn't goign to get critical acclaim just from playing unreleased songs live.

I disagree with you... have you ever heard NIN?

Yes but your missing the point, that was Fincks own guitar work, and the moment he's playing more of Slash'/Izzys work then he is hiw own in GnR. And he can't get full appreasal till his own GnR work is released.

[blueheart]

U dont get deemed a guitar GOD and? Rock hero without earning it.

Finck is nothing as long as he makes his living playing Slash and izzy's guitar parts.


When CD comes out, if he has stepped up to the plate and kicks total fucking ass, he will then get respect.

Until then, he wont.

DING DING DING DING DING

We have a Winnah!!!

so that means that Finck doesn t play good songs such as better, madagascar, there was a time, chinese democracy, irs etc... you have only heard him playing old gnr songs? wtf? get a grip...

Has CD been release yes or no? He isn't going to get praise from the general public by songs they've heard him playing live and that's it. Once CD is released and if there are great parts on by him then he will get the deserved praised until then he won't because like I said he isn't goign to get critical acclaim just from playing unreleased songs live.

I disagree with you... have you ever heard NIN?

Yes but your missing the point, that was Fincks own guitar work, and the moment he's playing more of Slash'/Izzys work then he is hiw own in GnR. And he can't get full appreasal till his own GnR work is released.

I guess you are not serious now.  That means that when Slash went to VR had to prove his ability to play guitar.... or
Ron Thal has to prove now his ability to play guitar. Maybe even buckethead had to prove us his ability to play guitar when he joined GNR.... I can accept the fact that you may like Finck or not... but not that his has to prove his talent through a GNR record. That's silly

[estrangedpaul]

Finck is actually the closest to Slash in terms of playing style of all the three guitarists. He's quite bluesy rather than a shredder, he is definately the most rock n' roll of the three. That's why he plays most of the old Slash solos, particularly the bluesier ones. He is definately the best of the three in the writing department as well. Better is the best of the new songs and his solos in Better, The Blues and There Was A Time are brilliant. Considering we have only heard about eight or nine gnr songs featuring Finck so far, he's done quite well. His stage presence is good as well.

Three reservations:

1) The solos he plays on his own between songs suck.
2) I'm suspicious of his change of look since 2002. Apart from the obvious beard and long hair and his ditching of the goth look, there is all the stage diving, the smiling and the "this is what I live for" comments. I don't know, why wasn't he doing this in 2002. It seems a bit too coreographed and fake, like Axl asked him to change his look and style to fit in with the band. Which I suppose is a good thing, but hopefully he does this coz he wants to, not because he is under contract.
3) Trent Reznor said that Axl offered Robin Finck a shitload of money to return to GnR and he did. Ok, Reznor might be wrong, but he knows Finck better than any of us! It does seem strange that he left and then returned. We haven't really anything about the reasons for leaving and joining again, so I have a feeling Trent was right. Axl, when paying him a lot of money has more control over his look which fits in with no.2. Who knows though?

[Neemo]

for the record...the only NIN album that Finck is presented on is the live one...reznor writes everything for NIN...EVERYTHING Robin was just able to play it the way Trent wanted it played

and estranged paul....take a good listen to some old gnr solos...off your cds...tell me slash doesn't rip it up...NR outro comes to mind

I thought D? was able to sum it up the best:

U dont get deemed a guitar GOD and  Rock hero without earning it.

Finck is nothing as long as he makes his living playing Slash and izzy's guitar parts.


When CD comes out, if he has stepped up to the plate and kicks total fucking ass, he will then get respect.

Until then, he wont.

[dave-gnfnr2k]

Good post Jimmy - pretty much nailed it there.

To all the Finck fans - no offense but if I had years 10 + and endless money at my disposal I could probably write a solo as good as the one in the The Blues. I also know that if I had all that time and money Id at least be able to play the old songs without continually messing them up.

To say hes better than Slash is absurd. If there was no Slash you'd be posting on the Crue board moaning about them instead. At least Slash could play the songs. Plus he wrote them so anyone who anyone who slates him needs to take a reality check. So what if he was drunk some of the time, Finck cant play them sober.

His continued sloppiness and lack of output (along with he rest of the band) suggests to me that they arent so much? band than a bunch of hired hands called in when Axl wants to continue tweaking the ridiculously overdue album. if they were such a tight unit then we'd be on album 3 by now.

Before everyone starts saying 'Oh you hate Guns, go to the VR board wa wa wa' Im an Axl fan (why, I dont know) and look forward to hearing what this album will sound like.

Who said the music has taken 10 years to write? The music has been done since 2002 for the most part. Axl has been adding mostly arrangements over the last 4 years, the others have not really  gone back into the  studio save the tweak here and there. The blues and twat solos are pretty much the same as they were in 1999 save the BH part on TWAT which was added in 2002 or earlier, so what is this crap that it has taken robin ten years to write these solos? You really love to twist things to not give credit to robin dont you? The blues was written in 1999, that solo did not take robin anytime to make at all, so why are you lying?

Again as for Robin messing up the old songs, I dont know how many times I have to say this, he is not messing them up. It his playing it HIS WAY, he plays the solos the same every time, thus he changed them a bit to add his flavor to it. He has proved he can play the songs note for note like slash since he pretty much plays SCOM just like slash. I dont know why people cant understand this simple concept.

[Naupis]

It his playing it HIS WAY

That would be OK if he wasn't playing GNR songs in a band called GNR. People goto concerts expecting to hear GNR songs played the way GNR played them, not Robin Finck playing his version of them. If he would like to do his adaptations of what he wants GNR songs to sound like, he should go join a GNR cover band where the expectations are a little lower.

[dave-gnfnr2k]

Three reservations:

1) The solos he plays on his own between songs suck.
2) I'm suspicious of his change of look since 2002. Apart from the obvious beard and long hair and his ditching of the goth look, there is all the stage diving, the smiling and the "this is what I live for" comments. I don't know, why wasn't he doing this in 2002. It seems a bit too coreographed and fake, like Axl asked him to change his look and style to fit in with the band. Which I suppose is a good thing, but hopefully he does this coz he wants to, not because he is under contract.
3) Trent Reznor said that Axl offered Robin Finck a shitload of money to return to GnR and he did. Ok, Reznor might be wrong, but he knows Finck better than any of us! It does seem strange that he left and then returned. We haven't really anything about the reasons for leaving and joining again, so I have a feeling Trent was right. Axl, when paying him a lot of money has more control over his look which fits in with no.2. Who knows though?

1. Its a matter of taste, some of his solos between songs are great and some are just weird but its robin.
2. Robin did all that stage diving in NIN too, so that has not changed. As for his looks, robin has always changed his look over the years. Just look at him with NIN or Manson, his looked always changed. You ever think Robin left the goth look beside HE WANTED to? And thought that he did not need it because of the bands style? Axl would not ask him to change his look it would be like saying BH would lose his Bucket for gnr back in 2002.
3. That money thing is a crock of shit. Its easy why Robin stayed with Axl and not Trent and no its not for the money. The reason being is Axl let robin write music for guns n roses while Trent would not let Robin write for NIN. Trent does not let anyone else write for NIN, while Axl loved what Robin could bring. IN NIN robin felt like just a live player where as in guns n roses he felt like he was IN a band becasue he helped write the songs he plays and will be on the next album.
Tell me this, if you had a choice of joining two bands, and one lead singer said ?you can help write songs and the other said no you just play how i tell you to on the album and what I wrote, what band would you go with?

[dave-gnfnr2k]

It his playing it HIS WAY

That would be OK if he wasn't playing GNR songs in a band called GNR. People goto concerts expecting to hear GNR songs played the way GNR played them, not Robin Finck playing his version of them. If he would like to do his adaptations of what he wants GNR songs to sound like, he should go join a GNR cover band where the expectations are a little lower.

That is funny since guns n roses even changed the way their played their own songs live compared to how they were on the albums. Just look at patience, gnr after 1989 never played it like it was on the album, slash totally changed the solo. He did it other times too. Axl even said they updated the songs when they redid AFD plus the other few songs they play live, they are playing it different. Face it, this band is guns n roses now, and they are not a cover band and going to play the songs note for note they are going to put their style into it. There is nothing wrong with that. Some people just have to get over it already. The changes are not even that different, I dont know what the big deal is.

When BH changed the outro to NT and played it his way it was fucking amazing and better than slash ever did it. Some of you need to move out of the past, this band plays the songs the way they want. Deal with it. They have been doing it for 6 years now. The way some of you talk its like its something new they are doing this.

[alternativemonkey]

The album will be the final judge on Fink's merits. Though, I'm already a huge supporter.  I think he gets a lot of unwarranted criticism. Yes, he's not Slash. And, this is not 1994.

[Neemo]

That is funny since guns n roses even changed the way their played their own songs live compared to how they were on the albums. Just look at patience, gnr after 1989 never played it like it was on the album, slash totally changed the solo.

totally bad choice of songs cuz the studio version was 4 acoustic guitars and no bass or drums on the album....they usually play it electric with 2 electric guitars an electric bass guitar and drums live so of course their gonna do it different

I understand that they wanna change up the songs but when you fuck with classic tunes then you piss people off...do you think clapton's new guitarists change the old tunes cuz they wanna update them? i doubt it very much...

IMO BH didn't change the NR outro very much at all...if any

and it's spelled finCk

[slashisvr]

erm.... should i say my opinion?

ok ill say it, i dislike fink, he wrecks slash's solo's, acts like a prat on stage and his solo's at gigs are average, but his solo's in the songs are cool.i just dint think he fits in GNR.

[freddiebrph]

it has nothing to do with Fincks talent, but is due to primitivity of most GNR fans, who are limited to a certain type of guitar playing, and dare not look outside their limited box

That is not true at all. This is a "what have you done for me lately" world. I dont care if he as been "working" with axl for 30 years. Until we get an album of new material, What do you expect us older gnr fans to say? Ya, that guy can really play slash's music! As Long as axl continues to cover the back catalogue, we will never know.

[25]

Finck Fan: Robin is good!
Slash Fan: But he's not Slash!

. . . seems to be the way the discussion tends to go. Both points are true, of course, but the second one seems redundant. By my calculations (and I'm no math genius, so I could be wrong) it seems to me that everyone who isn't Slash, isn't Slash. 

One guy is Slash though (his name is Slash). And I think he probably remembers better than most GNR fans do that it took a really, really long time for Slash to get any sort of respect for his guitar playing. You see, he was a legato style soloist and old-school riffer who became well known at a time when rock music was dominated by bad metal bands with super-fast shredders and Van Halen clones on guitar, while mainstream music was dominated by electro-pop bullshit. So Slash caught shit from both sides, being too smooth and retro for the rock scene and too scuzzy and rockish for the pop clones. Even guitar veterans like Keith Richards would say, when asked, "I have no opinion of him," and then leave to get their veins flushed. It was only really GNR fans who liked his style and gave him the deserved praise. Anyway, fast forward about five years and Slash was one of the most famous living guitarists in the most famous band on the most famous planet in the whole universe. Metal and shredding and the Van Halen clones had worn out their welcome and gone underground to record bad music with orchestral accompaniment and electro-pop had been unplugged, returned to the manufacturer and broken down into its component parts and shelved for later. Both the mainstream and the rock scene were now being molested by soft-rock, pop-rock, returning old-school rock bands, and GNR clones. Begrudgingly, many of the critics, music fans and even other musicians had come around to the fact that Slash was actually pretty good, especially compared to his imitators. And with this encouragement, many GNR fans declared Slash a deity. And since most people, especially music fans, were too busy fixing their hair or working the night shift at the gas station to notice or care, Slash was officially enshrined as the God of Perms.

And about a week later Slash, GNR, and pretty much all of rock music, disappeared.


Now we have a new GNR - and a new guitarist, his name is Robin. He too has a style all his own which is relatively unpopular outside of me and about five other people. His detractors often complain about things like, "He isn't Slash!" Or, "He doesn't have a perm!" But we all know better. The day will (eventually, hopefully) come when he isn't called upon to revisit the shrine of Slash, God of Perms, as much and will instead be able to play his own music in his own way, perhaps in front of living people on a regular basis. And once he's had enough time and experience doing so to hone his chops and develop an unfortunate chemical dependancy problem, perhaps we'll be able to say "Hey, sure he isn't Slash and he doesn't have a perm but, you know, he's pretty good too." And he will be enshrined as Robin, God of  Often Mis-spelled Surnames.   

[dave-gnfnr2k]

That is funny since guns n roses even changed the way their played their own songs live compared to how they were on the albums. Just look at patience, gnr after 1989 never played it like it was on the album, slash totally changed the solo.

totally bad choice of songs cuz the studio version was 4 acoustic guitars and no bass or drums on the album....they usually play it electric with 2 electric guitars an electric bass guitar and drums live so of course their gonna do it different

I understand that they wanna change up the songs but when you fuck with classic tunes then you piss people off...do you think clapton's new guitarists change the old tunes cuz they wanna update them? i doubt it very much...

IMO BH didn't change the NR outro very much at all...if any

and it's spelled finCk

That is funny because when gnr first started playing the song they played it just like the studio version only they added drums. The current version of gnr plays it the way the orginal played patience in 1988-89.

[Neemo]

Finck Fan: Robin is good!
Slash Fan: But he's not Slash!

. . . seems to be the way the discussion tends to go. Both points are true, of course, but the second one seems redundant. By my calculations (and I'm no math genius, so I could be wrong) it seems to me that everyone who isn't Slash, isn't Slash.?

nah not really...it usually goes...

Finck Swinger: "Robin is a god that is the greatest guitarist ever to grace the stage with Axl and he's a much greater guitarist than slash ever was...i mean look at better...Robin wrote it"
Old GnR fan: "pfft....yeah right"

[dave-gnfnr2k]

Finck Fan: Robin is good!
Slash Fan: But he's not Slash!

. . . seems to be the way the discussion tends to go. Both points are true, of course, but the second one seems redundant. By my calculations (and I'm no math genius, so I could be wrong) it seems to me that everyone who isn't Slash, isn't Slash.?

nah not really...it usually goes...

Finck Swinger: "Robin is a god that is the greatest guitarist ever to grace the stage with Axl and he's a much greater guitarist than slash ever was...i mean look at better...Robin wrote it"
Old GnR fan: "pfft....yeah right"

Robins writing that we heard heard this far is better than anything slash has wriitten in VR. There ya go

[slashisvr]

Finck Fan: Robin is good!
Slash Fan: But he's not Slash!

. . . seems to be the way the discussion tends to go. Both points are true, of course, but the second one seems redundant. By my calculations (and I'm no math genius, so I could be wrong) it seems to me that everyone who isn't Slash, isn't Slash.?

nah not really...it usually goes...

Finck Swinger: "Robin is a god that is the greatest guitarist ever to grace the stage with Axl and he's a much greater guitarist than slash ever was...i mean look at better...Robin wrote it"
Old GnR fan: "pfft....yeah right"

slash wrote the greatest riff of all time as some people say SCOM!!!