Slash and Myles Kennedy

Slash announced on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, that Myles Kennedy, singer for the band Alter Bridge and others, will front his band on the 2010 tour that is part of promoting his new solo album. Wow! I COULDN'T be happier. I feel a proprietary interest in Slash's tour and his album. I believe he is under-appreciated in the extreme. Not in terms of fans--he has a gazillion of them -- they hang onto his every word and utterance on the social networking sites. Slash has only to write some very brief and mundane statement: "I'm going to the store to buy some milk" and he'll be answered or commented upon by hundreds of impassioned, really loving messages from fans and followers. I assume they are mostly young rock musicians and rock music fans -- the language and writing style that some of them use makes me think many of them are teens. Maybe even younger. It's touching. Young people long for role models, for people to love and fantasize about, and idolize. It's part of growing up. Both genders seem well-represented among his fans, at least judging from those that I take time to read.

I think Slash's wondrous guitar playing and his acute musicianship will bloom and shine and rise to unexpectedly sublime heights with Myles as his partner on stage. I hope and pray he hires a really good videographer to make a sort of documentary about it. When I read his autobiography, his pain and anguish at the debacle of Guns and Roses was plain to read. Not just in the "between the lines" sub-text, but also in the actual words and thoughts. As I read the book, my heart ached for him. I thought a lot about Mozart while I was reading "Slash". Mozart was prone to all kinds of personal weaknesses and above all, he was surrounded by people who did not for one moment understand the depth and power of his creative genius. He suffered a great deal from the cultural Philistines around him who could not understand what his music represented. It has in fact taken many many years for us, in this day and age, to appreciate the rare and exceptional musical mind that Mozart had.

A source of great pain to Mozart was how eager and excited he was just by the ACT of creating music and then seeing/hearing it performed; yet he had to deal with unscrupulous promoters, aristocrat audiences who had not even the slightest idea of what they were hearing -- that they were being presented with the most rare and precious jewels of music that they could not really appreciate at the time -- and performers whose egos were way out of proportion to their talents.

I think Slash's musical life has in many facets reflected some of the angst and struggle that beleaguered Mozart. I also believe that we have yet to fully see the remarkable range of talents, understandings, vision, and creative genius that Slash carries within himself. He has my blessings for sure. I can hardly wait to hear and see Slash perform live. I hope the tour comes within a reasonable distance from Chicago. I honor and treasure musical gifts of genius, be it in rock music, opera, jazz or hip hop/rap. I am eager to transmit that thought in my music education text.