Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Izzy Stradlin Edition

Great news, everybody! Guns N’ Roses has finally reunited!! Well, most of them anyway. Even with a so-called “classic era” lineup, the group that annihilated the late ‘80s / early ‘90s LA Rock scene and will be coming to a Coachella near you is missing one important piece - founder and rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin. He and Axl Rose formed the band from the remains of Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns, and was with the group through their most explosive period when they became the biggest Hard Rock band in the world with the albums Appetite for Destruction, G N' R Lies, and Use Your Illusion I and II.

Despite their tabloid-ready personal disputes and hedonistic excess, GNR was the real deal and a worthy sucessor to the titanic Arena Rock bands that came before like Led Zeppelin and Van Halen. Stradlin left the band in 1991 because he wanted to get sober, and has since launched his own solo career while occasionally rejoining his old bandmates for occasional gigs. But not the upcoming 2016 tour, which he has confirmed he will not participate in. Sometimes, you can’t go home again, and when you’ve got a full life of your own, that’s not at all a bad thing.

Today is Izzy’s birthday, so let’s celebrate by taking your MP3 player, pressing the "shuffle" button, and sharing the first 10 songs that play:

1. The Chemical Brothers – Block Rockin’ Beats (Dig Your Own Hole)

2. Renegade Soundwave - Probably a Robbery (Soundclash)

3. White Orange - Middle of the Riddle (PDX Pop Now! 2012)

4. The London Symphony Orchestra - Grieg/Lyric Suite Op. 54 (BMG Classic)

5. Yellowbirds - Julian (Songs from the Vanished Frontier)

6. Len Wade - Everybody’s Clown (Soul Ressurection)

7. Prodigy & The Alchemist - R.I.P. (featuring Havoc & Raekwon (Albert Einstein)

8. The Smithereens - Spellbound (Green Thoughts)

9. Mickey & The Soul Generation - Football (Iron Leg: The Complete Mickey & the Soul Generation)

10. Toronzo Cannon - John the Conqueror Root (Delmark 60 Years of Blues)

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