SUPER BOWL RETARDATION ROUND-UP, PART 2: $LASH AND FERGIE RAPE “SWEET CHILD O’ MINE”

In 1987, $lash wrote the main riff for “Sweet Child O’ Mine” as a joke during warm-up for band practice, and after Izzy Stradlin and Axl Rose recognized its potential and turned it into an actual song, The World’s Best Jew ‘Fro argued against its inclusion on Appetite for Destruction, thinking it was too ballad-y for a hard rock album. Now, twenty-four years later, $lash has finally taken his revenge  on the song that gave him his career: wearing a variation of his signature top hat that was apparently fashioned from some old clothes Rob Halford recently donated to the Salvation Army, $lash appeared on the Super Bowl half-time show with The Black Eyed Peas to assist Fergie in what Vince rightly referred to as a “mutilation” of the song.

Fergie, who even went so far as to imitate Axl Rose’s famous snake dance (I can practically feel The Ginger One getting litigious), sounded like shit, but, way worse — $lash sounded like shit, too. Right now, the only thing the guy has going for him is that his style, although clearly rooted in blues rock of the 70s, is inimitable and instantly recognizable; but the solo he played last night (which, oddly, seemed to borrow phrasings not from the original “SCOM” solo, but from the one in “Slither” instead”) was just a mess of notes that might as well have been played by Dj Ashba.

Seriously — remember that South Park episode from awhile back where the boys watch in terror as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas rape Indiana Jones? That’s what $lash did to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” last night. Someone please put this guy out of my misery.

-AR