Spin And Groove

Guns N’ Roses were one of those bands I came to late. By the time I really sat down with them — properly, vinyl in hand — most people had already written their verdict. But put aside everything you’ve read about them and just sit with Side R of this record. Four acoustic tracks. No stadium theatrics, no pyrotechnics. Just Axl, some guitars, and a directness that genuinely surprised me the first time I dropped the needle on it.

G N’ R Lies is technically a stopgap record — half reissue, half new material, thrown together in the gap between Appetite for Destruction and the Use Your Illusion albums. But it ended up being one of the most revealing things they ever released. The contrast between the two sides tells you more about what this band actually were than their polished records do. And on vinyl, that contrast sounds extraordinary.

A Record That Wasn’t Supposed to Matter

By late 1988, Appetite for Destruction had already done what few debut albums manage: it had genuinely changed things. The record spent a hundred weeks on the Billboard chart and produced singles that would outlive pretty much everything released alongside them. The band was everywhere.

The problem was, they didn’t have a follow-up album ready. What they had was a 1986 indie EP — Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide — that had been changing hands for ridiculous amounts of money on the collector market, and four acoustic songs that didn’t fit the sound of Appetite but that were clearly too good to just sit on a shelf. The solution was G N’ R Lies: stick the EP on Side G, put the acoustic tracks on Side R, and call it a record.

It sounds like a cynical calculation. And maybe it was. But the result — this strange, split-personality document of a band at the peak of their powers — is genuinely fascinating.

The G Side: Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide

The first side of the LP repackages the four tracks from that original 1986 EP. Reckless Life, Nice Boys, Move to the City, and Mama Kin — raw, loud, and deliberately rough.

Here’s something that not everyone knows: the EP wasn’t actually recorded live. The band recorded it in a studio, then overdubbed crowd noise from a Texxas Jam festival recording to give it the feel of a live show. The result is a “live” record that isn’t one. Which is either brazen or brilliant depending on how you look at it. I lean toward brilliant. The energy is real even if the setting is manufactured, and the performances have a ferocity that genuine live recordings often don’t capture cleanly.

By 1988, the original pressing of that EP had become a serious collector’s piece. People were paying silly money for it. Re-releasing it here was partly a fan service, partly a market correction. Suddenly anyone could own it. The tracks hold up. “Reckless Life” opens with a Slash riff that announces exactly what kind of band this is. “Nice Boys” is a blast of controlled chaos. “Mama Kin,” the Aerosmith cover, still sounds like a band playing with genuine menace rather than reverence.

On vinyl, Side G is loud and punchy. The pressing I have is clean, and through the Shure V15 Type III it sounds crisp and present without harshness. The overdubbed crowd noise is obvious if you’re listening for it, but in context it adds a live-show energy that works.

The R Side: Four Acoustic Songs Worth Owning the Record For

And then you flip it over, and the record becomes something else entirely.

“Patience” opens Side R with a whistled intro. Genuinely unexpected on a Guns N’ Roses record. It sets the tone immediately: this is a different mode. The song is essentially a breakup letter dressed as a country-inflected ballad, patient and mournful in a way that felt genuinely surprising from Axl Rose. No screaming, no posturing — just a melody and a feeling, and both of them land cleanly.

“Used to Love Her” is a different kind of song. It’s dark-humoured — some people find it genuinely offensive, which isn’t an unreasonable response — but musically it’s one of the most effortlessly catchy things on the record. A light acoustic strum, almost breezy, over a lyric with a very dark edge. Axl has maintained over the years that it’s a joke. I’ll leave that debate where it is. What I will say is that on vinyl, the acoustic guitar on this track has a warmth and body that digital versions consistently fail to reproduce.

“You’re Crazy” appears here in a stripped-back acoustic version quite different from the electric version on Appetite. Slower. More coiled. In some ways more threatening. There’s something interesting about how removing the full band makes the song feel more dangerous rather than less.

Then there’s “One in a Million.” I won’t pretend this one is straightforward. The lyrics contain slurs that are offensive, and Axl’s attempts to contextualise them over the years have not landed with the people he offended. The criticisms are legitimate. What I can say from a purely musical standpoint is that the song itself is a remarkable piece of writing — a long, slow acoustic drift with a melody that genuinely lingers. Sitting with both those things at once is uncomfortable. But that’s where the record puts you.

Tracklist

Why the Format Matters

I’ve listened to this record a lot on CD and streaming over the years. The CD version is fine. But vinyl does something specific here, especially on Side R. The acoustic tracks breathe differently. “Patience” in particular — that opening whistle, Axl’s voice when it enters, the acoustic guitar underneath — has a presence and warmth through vinyl that I’ve never quite gotten from digital formats. There’s something about the way the Shure V15 Type III handles the natural transients of acoustic guitar that makes the recording feel closer and more immediate.

Side G benefits from the format too. Loud rock music through vinyl often suffers from compression artifacts or muddiness, but the pressing I have handles the dynamics cleanly. The Technics SL-1200 MK3 tracks without fuss, and the V15’s low-distortion characteristics let the rawness of the recordings come through without adding anything unwanted on top.

This isn’t a pristine audiophile recording. The 1986 EP in particular was recorded to sound rough, and it does. But there’s rough-by-design and rough-by-accident, and the G Side is very much the former. On vinyl, that intentional roughness translates as energy rather than poor quality.

Finding a Copy

Original pressings of G N’ R Lies are still findable at reasonable prices — this isn’t one of those records where you need to remortgage anything. The Discogs marketplace has a good range of pressings from different countries and years. For the acoustic side, I’d prioritise finding a copy with a quiet Side R — that’s where the nuance lives, and surface noise is most intrusive on those quiet guitar passages. A clean Side G matters too, but the EP tracks are robust enough to tolerate a bit more.

Equipment Used for This Recording

I was running the Shure V15 Type III cartridge on the Technics SL-1200 MK3 for this recording, with the Yamaha HA-5 handling phono amplification. The V15 Type III is a cartridge I keep coming back to. It tracks beautifully, retrieves detail without harshness, and has a particular affinity for acoustic material and vocals. For a record with this much dynamic range between its two sides, it handles both without asking for a compromise.

The V15 Type III features a beryllium cantilever — lightweight and rigid, which translates to accurate transient response — and has a deserved reputation for low tracking force combined with excellent groove contact. Shure discontinued their phono cartridge line in the early 2000s, which means finding a good V15 Type III now requires some patience and some luck. But the hunt is worth it.

For full specifications and a detailed technical review of the V15 Type III, the Stereophile piece is the most thorough reference I’ve found: Shure V15-III — Stereophile.

Further Listening

If G N’ R Lies gets you curious about the band in this period, the obvious next step is Appetite for Destruction, which is a more consistent record but lacks the intimacy of the acoustic side here. For the acoustic tracks specifically, Use Your Illusion II has some moments — “November Rain” especially — that follow in a similar direction.

For more context and a good written take on the album, Mike Ladano’s review is worth reading: GN’R Lies Review — mikeladano.com. And if you want to browse pressing variants or track down a copy, the Discogs master entry is the right starting point: GN’R Lies on Discogs.