Euchre

19 hours ago, allwaystired said:

I'm amazed they played for 60 minutes, as they barely have that amount of material! 

I opted out of those shows, even though they're one of my favourite bands, as I don't like living in the past, trying to recreate it, nostalgia, etc. Bands have their moment and if I missed it first time, then, bad luck me. Would have loved to have been there in the 70s, but I wasn't. I don't want to miss the bands of now. No point looking backwards. All that stuff. You know the drill. Yet......here I am on a GNR forum in 2021! Hahaha! 

And you know what really weirds me out.... when I saw the Pistols in ‘96 I think it was it seemed like this really old band coming back - 19 years after their debut/prime. 

The GNR equivalent would have been them doing an AFD reunion in 2006 !!

Like you say it’s now 34 years past debut/prime for GNR and I’m still holding out hope that one day the reunion might happen - but because I’ve seen GNR unfold since the start (I wasn’t born when the Pistols exploded), it doesn’t feel like an ancient band to me...but when I stop and think like this I realise yeah actually it is ancient and it’s even more ancient than all those bands I thought were old in the 80s & 90s. It’s just me who is also old now !!

6 hours ago, jamillos said:

Of course, to each their own. But I can do without the noodling, 20-minute KOHD, "improvs", etc. My back is killing me as it is!

I agree. Once a show, any show, gets above 2 hours I'm losing interest even it was Zeppelin who have a much bigger catalogue than GNR. 

GNR with a set padded out with covers and solos would kill me.

My favourite era of GNR was actually when they were opening and they used to come out and put on this ridiculously intense set. When they started to headline it was good at first but then slowly got more bloated and boring IMO.

One of the best shows I've ever seen was the Sex Pistols on their reunion tour when they came out and just hammered it relentlessly for 60 mins and left. I don't even remember there being an encore. It was the biggest pit of any show I've ever seen by a long way and certainly one of my most memorably gigs - it was almost like what just happened.

And just to be pedantic - even though it’s not why you are after - there is also photos of Slash around wearing a Monsters of Rock shirt from one of the years Anthrax played which obviously features Anthrax on the front. 

11 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

No, that was a Misfits shirt.

The reason I ask is that Scott Ian from Anthrax mentions having met the band backstage at a show when Axl wore an Anthrax shirt, and I want to know when that was. He also says it was at the Ritz in '86, but the band didn't play the Ritz in '86 and when they did in '87 and '88 Slash didn't wear an Anthrax shirt.

In one of those GNR podcasts Charlie Benante said the first time he saw GNR was the ‘88 Ritz show and Slash was wearing an Anthrax shirt backstage. That is somewhat consistent with the above - he could have easily changed shirts before or after the actual show.

I seem to remember and interview with someone in Anthrax, which I thought was Scott Ian where they said the first time they saw GNR was L’Armour and Slash was wearing the shirt then. So I must be remembering that wrong.

Slash was pretty calculating back then so I’d be surprised if it wasn’t in NY somewhere.

Pretty sure it was the L’Armour, Brooklyn show in ‘87

4 hours ago, BangoSkank said:

Sure, and that may be true for GNR too. But as it relates to the band I don't think Slash & Duff ever challenged that contract formally, did they?

Yes that is why I say the statement is only half true. If they had of formally challenged it the next day they probably would have got it overturned. If they waited 3 years of whatever they waited it wouldn’t have got overturned for duress.

So for Axl to say the story is BS as it would have got overturned on grounds of duress - I don’t think holds up / proves anything. (There were some aspects Adler signed away that he couldn’t get back eg rights to the name, supposedly as his lawyer didn’t file on this claim and by the time they realised the oversite it was too late - and he obviously won in the end on an unenforceable contract).

For the record I’m sceptical about the GNR name story for one reason and one reason only - I’m sure I read an interview with Niven once where he said something like the name issue came up as part of the Geffen renegotiation and he designed it all so while Axl had the name, the others had enough control of the music and imagery (eg logo) that Axl couldn’t really make money off it without their support.

I suppose both could be true (ie Niven designed it but ultimately it was all executed under Goldstein) - I’m not sure if the time differences make this plausible.

On the other theory it seems to me that Goldstein is such a liar/ass kisser that I can certainly believe it and believe everyone ex Goldstein is telling the truth.

ie Goldstein tells Axl, Duff and Slash are due to sign the contract, mentions nothing about his method to make this happen.

Goes to Slash and Duff and says Axl won’t go on stage without it signed to ensure they do it quickly without getting their own advice. (Which given it was their manager presenting the contract chances are they wouldn’t have anyway). Plausible explanation given, Axl was already late for show. 

Tells them the contract is benign and only kicks in if someone dies. Goldstein seems to have form in this regard seemingly having told Adler the contract he signed said something different to what it actually did.

To add to it all Slash & Duff are probably already drunk and not thinking straight. You would think they would be entitled to trust something their manager was doing regardless.

Goldstein tells Axl he gets the signatures and that Slash and Duff were ok with it all.

When Duff realises what happens and he confronts Goldstein he gets told it’s too late now.

Both Slash and Duff don’t want to rock the boat in the middle of a large tour and figure if in the future things go wrong and they leave, Axl can’t really do anything with the name. So it’s not that much of an issues.

Years later things go pear shaped and they realise how bad it was. By then too late to push the duress issue, so they speak out. To best of Axls knowledge this is all BS as he’s never heard any of this before. Probably asks Goldstein who he trusts and Goldstein tells him the duress point to try and prove he never did what was claimed and remain in good stead.

I think the above is a simple, plausible narrative that fits with all that has been said (well aside from whatever Goldstein says)

BTW I agree that a book from Axl would be some good insight I do think overall Axl is pretty open and honest when he does speak - just delusional and lacking self awareness at times !! Slash definitely lies at times. Duff is a weird one from what i can see not always entirely truthful at times but more so out of being diplomatic and trying to help rather than being manipulative - what some would call little white lies.

2 hours ago, BangoSkank said:

 Then late one night on a forum (maybe this one) Axl said, "that's impossible because legally speaking that's a contract under duress and would not hold up." That simple sentence brought a lot of clarity on the issue for me.

From personal experience that statement is only half true - well at least in Oz so may be different in the US.

When i was young and naïve I was forced to sign a contract in a similar kind of situation - certainly a difficult position in that I was told I needed to sign it or affected my job.

Fast forward about 2 years and when it came to the crunch and I was briefing the lawyer, I was told failure to act for two years basically meant I had tacitly accepted the contract - so I could fight it on the duress point but my chances weren’t good.

Basically the advice amounted to if you sign something under duress you need to fight it right away.

As mentioned US is different legal system to Oz but there are a lot of similarities and case law can be used from each juristiction in the other - but if US is like Oz and you wait 3-4 years to challenge a contract based on duress, which I’d guess was the timeline in the GNR case, based on what I’ve been told, your chances aren’t good.

Well I said upfront that I was fortunate that I had the ability to be able to travel, but i think that is far from the whole story. (And by the way we rent our place in the UK !!).

Also so many of my best memories this year in the UK were all the walking we did - both in beautiful parks and in the countryside, especially in autumn - all of which is free. Got fit and had a great time.

All i was trying to get at was the headlines paint a certain picture about Oz, which isn’t really the case. You might not enjoy it as much as you think if you were there.
 

This article gives a good rundown of the lockdown my brother in law got caught up in : 112 days and very draconian. By contrast the UK lockdown last March I think lasted 48 days.

You don’t see the headlines about how well Oz is doing reminding everyone of this.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-australia-54686812

6 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

Fair enough, but I can confirm it's absolutely fucking shit being in the UK at the moment, as literally everyone I know thinks.

I find it insane that anyone wouldn't really, when they're back to relative normality while we're still languishing in lockdown! 

 

I know the first bit - which is why we got out as soon as school finished in Dec, I really wanted to be there for the northern hemisphere Christmas but risk of lockdown and then not being able to get out was too much so we left and glad we did. Where we live in UK cases were low and I honestly felt safe the whole time.

Maybe I’m insane because I’m not going back to Oz for at least 6 months and as soon as schools reopen in UK we’re going back to our home there...

49 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

 You're glad you're not in Australia? Why is that? I mean, they're nearly back to normal and have a tiny death toll and an economy that hasn't been trashed! That all seems pretty great to me. They're currently the envy of the world when it comes to Covid! 

Well I don’t want to go into it too much as I know it’s an emotional topic for many, but what you quote is the headlines.

I’ve spent the last 8 months now travelling to all sorts of amazing places with my family - and I’ve travelled a lot over the last 20 years but this year has been one of the best. Spent 4 of those months in the UK and it was great. As mentioned I’m fortunate that I can do it as I know most don’t have this luxury.

My brother in law back home in Australia spent over 90 days locked down in his home with he and his wife trying to homeschool their 4 kids. They managed to get away for Christmas holidays, after about a week saw that if they weren’t back in their home state by midnight they were going to have to do another 2 week quarantine. Packed up within an hour and we’re on the road - with everyone else scrambling - after already big day having to drive into the early hours of the morning stopped at the border for hours, family shattered etc etc. One case and things go into panic, lockdowns, borders shut, holidays cancelled again, hours of queueing for testing etc etc. Even our family Dr who I was talking to today is over it all. I’d say the majority of my friends back home are over it and just looking for it to end so they can take a holiday with confidence.

Also unfortunately we seem to be quite a bit behind on the vaccine.

The death toll has been low which has been great & hospitals haven’t been stretched. But it certainly has come at a price.

ETA : like I said upfront it’s just the risk/reward on how much society value the freedom vs the risk that comes with it in these times. There is no right or wrong answer it’s just something society has to decide on a lot of issues not just covid. Some places have just accepted the risk that goes with the greater freedom more than Oz. Oz has almost said any deaths are too much risk - which might seem a good approach on the surface but they take a different attitude to driving cars where some risk of death is acceptable. The point being every society needs to draw the line somewhere and it is ok that different societies draw it in different places (or at least in my view). So Oz for example has drawn its risk/return line somewhere in between cars and covid - value of cars outweighing risk of death they bring, covid value of freedom doesn’t outweigh risk. Some places have drawn that line on the other side of covid.

2 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

unless they whip up a bit of interest and hype by, say, releasing an album! 

Well the other route they have is go the full reunion - that'll bring a new round of interest. I do wonder if that has been the plan all along - do the partial knowing that will spark a decent round and when that wears off, go the full reunion to get another go around. (Doesn't work if you reverse the order).

2 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

Australia/NZ really are an example of how to handle things well. The polar opposite of disaster zones like the UK and US. 

Seems I'm the polar opposite - I'm Australian but got the hell out of Oz mid last year and so glad I did. I was in a fortunate position but I feel I've had it much better off than my friends and family back home. I think it all comes down to risk/return.

They are going to need to tour once the covid restrictions list - they will need the cash after not having income for at least 18 months - but so will a lot of bands so it will be a crowded market place. and hence competitive. Venues probably have the upper hand as there will be a lot of bands trying to book that limited supply. Money will also be tight on the demand side.

Those hoping for an album from the current line up will really need to hope it is finished prior to this all lifting - cos if they can't produce one now with nothing to do for a year other than to make an album, they are absolutely no chance once the touring cycle fires up again.

ETA - in terms of large events, how did the Super Bowl go ? I saw today that the Australian Open tennis was so empty they were giving away free tickets to the night matches.

Ok, I'll add a few thoughts from your posts :

Yes I would expect that Axl was desperate for cash - I would guess the only real income he would have had from '93 until NITL was the publishing. The record co paid the bills for CD, but equally they would have taken the bulk, if not all, of the Best Buy deal to recover. I don't think the UYI tour made much either since, despite being a massive tour, had to pay a lot of fines and there was quite a bit of largesse which doesn't come cheap. Post UYI, running a large operation for 20 years and basically having nothing to show for it doesn't come cheap - Axl as the owner would have got paid last in all that. Everything you say about the various things he was sued for, along with the mortgage info all point the same way. Even renting a Bentley rather than buying outright speaks to this. So I'd say he was reasonably well off, but no where near to the degree those sites you talk about and certainly not enough to keep him going in the lifestyle he was accustomed to.

The publishing side is interesting. Looking at this article : https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/arts/music/merck-mercuriadis-hipgnosis.html

Working backward from the price paid for a catalogue you can estimate what it brings in each year - "Hipgnosis has disclosed that its average multiple is 14.76, although Mercuriadis said that for some “important” catalogs it has paid multiples as high as 22". "Bob Dylan signed away his entire corpus of more than 600 copyrights for a sum estimated at $300 million to $400 million". 

So if you take the midpoint of $350 mio, and use the average multiple of 15, you get Bob Dylan's publishing making about $23 mio pa - on 600 songs - some massive.

Axl has 1/10th the number of songs - but Appetite/Lies are shared 5 ways - so looking at those numbers I can't imagine the publishing is worth more than a few mio per year, and looking at his lifestyle I'd imagine most of that goes just on day to day living. I'll add to this that from what I understand it required Axl, Slash & Duff to all sign off to license these songs to movies, games etc and apparently that wasn't happening too much, so the publishing would have been dampened.

So yeah I'd definitely say hurting for cash, which after calling Slash a cancer and saying NITL, comes the time to play compromise your integrity.

And just so happens Slash going through a costly divorce probably saw the $ signs as well.

Duff I'm not sure about, supposedly he was set up nicely from some early investments in Starbucks and Microsoft so who knows.

Either was this desperation for cash certainly paid a part in Adler and Izzy not being there. The reason Slash and Duff were is they were needed on board to sign off on the licensing mentioned above.

Managers - well I don't think Goldstein was a real manager, which is why I think he has clung to Axl knowing he'll never get another or a proper gig. Then they went through a list of big name managers who all came and went quickly. One of them managed the Crue during their most messed up period - seen it all, unphased by anything if the money is there. So I would guess here that it wasn't so much that he couldn't afford one as I think the bulk of payment comes in % commission - I think it was more why would any decent manager who can get a gig with a normal band that is actually doing something that they can earn their commission on - take up the job of such a volatile client who isn't doing anything ? Seems like a lot of headache for not much benefit. I guess that's the point you turn to your housekeeper.

New record - well per the point I've made a number of times in a recent thread. I don't think it has anything to do with laziness, but totally to do with capability.

Thanks

1 minute ago, allwaystired said:

Anything more you want to know? 

So it's mainly pics of the band and pics of memorabilia as opposed to including some sort of narrative or information ?

Are the pics exclusive to the book ? (ie are there live shows or photo shoots that you wouldn't have seen before ?)

If they are unseen photos are they completely new or just alternate shots from shows or shoots that are already out there ?

Also, thanks for the response !!

I think there was a book included in one of the L&L Box Sets - but I've never heard any one talk about it.

Is anyone that has it able to shed some light onto what's in it - ie previously unseen photos ? any interesting information ? rehash of what we've all seen before ?

11 minutes ago, Dean said:

He was posting on Reddit.

Hopefully something happens this year, with or without touring. Get a new record out, gents.

Yeah I was joking. ie implying that it was a message to the band, not the fans, you know "Axl, Slash, Duff, don't worry about an album this year".....

11 hours ago, ShadowOfTheWave said:

Fernando just said "don't be worried" about the prospect of new music this year.

You got the minutes of a management meeting with the band ?

53 minutes ago, Rovim said:

Especially after Izzy left. I also think after listening to the Snakepit tapes, Axl maybe realized that musical salvation wasn't going to come from only Slash.

I think Izzy is the nucleus of the band - the best 'core' song writing comes from him. If I breakdown why I think the original 5 were all so critical :

Izzy favours this simplicity and slamming cords. Great sense of rhythm.

Duff and Adler meshed in this incredible way. Both also favoured simplicity and both loved funk. They end up this groove laden beast. So critically interwoven its hard to separate them. They both also write really interesting parts.

I think Adler is so under appreciated in GNR. Every single track on Appetite has something uniquely identifiable about the drums - if you just listened to the drum track alone you can tell almost immdeately which song it is. (eg ISE intro unique, first drum stroke on Nightrain you know the song, OTGM is probably the least one but even then it has those big drum booms, Brownstone has the bo-didley rhythm, PC drum intro identifies the song, My Michelle unique intro, Think About You like Nightrain etc etc . Aside from that Jungle has well those jungle rhythms that no one else was doing at the time but were everywhere a few years later, SCOM Slash's riff gets well deserved attention, but so much of the verses of that song are just Axl's voice and Steve's drums - both with an amazing sound etc etc). Most other drummers I think it would be hard to distinguishing one of their drum tracks from another.

So you put that base together and you have this amazing rhythmic foundation for any song. I think the fact that all 3 of those guys were drummers at one point is a key and under appreciated point - they know how to bring it.

Slash / Axl then bring the epic to put it over the top. I'm not sure Slash is so good at the core writing by himself, can certainly work with other to bring it, but give him that core and he elevates the song in a way few others can. Izzy also held Slash back from the over indulgent noodling that would otherwise happen.

Axl needs someone to reign him in or he gets to this point of unable to do anything. But again put him with Izzy etc, have that balance that effectively forces him to deliver, constrains him in such a way that he can't go in endless circles and achieve nothing, and like Slash he becomes a firecracker than can elevate a song like few others.

So that balance between simpler but amazingly rhythmic, totally rocking, awesome groove foundation with just enough but not too much epic ness over the top was the balance that worked. Too much one way and you get rocking songs that probably don't stand out too much, too much the other way and you get self indulgent, pretentious or outright boring as the soul is lost....or nothing at all !!

3 minutes ago, Rovim said:

you didn't comment on Slash hoarding Fall To Pieces, and where the band could have gone potentially had they had something Axl was excited about to work with. Thoughts?

I stopped day to day interest in GN'R in about '93 as I was increasingly feeling the band wasn't right without the original 5, and was losing more and more interest in the UYI. So I only know the high level history post '93.

Because I love Appetite/Lies so much and think the original band was as close to a perfect hard rock band that I've seen, when the internet came out I've checked in with the various forums starting with the Boerio one, mainly in the vain hope that a reunion might happen one day, but also because it is interesting to see how the views around GNR have changed over the years. The main reason I've been posting recently is I've basically been in covid exile on a small tropical island for the last month and the surf has been flat the last week so looking for something to do !!

So basically I've only heard Fall to Pieces a few times, but by 96 or 97 or whenever it was I wasn't particularly interested in anything GNR that wasn't the 5. I have tried to give things a listen and a chance though so there have been various releases from the individual 5 that i've liked and others I haven't liked. Nothing that has matched Appetite/Lies though. The thing that I got most excited by has been the HoF show as it was the first time in a long time the music sounded 'right' to me. (The only other time I've had that sort of feeling was when Geordie Leach came back to Rose Tattoo, it had been so long since I'd heard him play with them I'd forgotten and was so amazed how the bass player could bring the sound back to how the classic sound was blew me away - I still remember standing at that concert going wow).

So this is a long way of saying I can't really comment much on Fall to Pieces as I wasn't following closely at that stage. I will say though that if Slash held what he thought was his best songs back from the band, that is a pretty shitty thing to do. You are basically sabotaging your own band at that point.

My general thoughts however would be without the balance and sound of the 5, it still would have been off - it might have been good - there is some things both Axl and Slash have done over the years that I've liked, but I don't think it could have matched the classic era.

19 minutes ago, Rovim said:

everyone got to contribute songs to UYI. And especially with such a varied album (for Gn'R at the time at least) I don't think Axl should have waited with his epics and I also don't think NR wasn't rock. It was more Queen influenced and it worked plus Slash turned it into something that contains one of the best moments in rock history imo. (NR outro)

I'm not really a fan of NR - I liked it when it came out, but have lost interest to the point I never want to hear it again.......ever. Having said that when I was into it, I did think the outro was the best part like you say. Out of those UYI ballads the only part I still like today is the ending of Estranged. Overall I find Patience infinitely more interesting than any of the UYI ballads - seems to have more originality to it, less repetitive and more relatable.

I'm probably not familiar enough with Queen to comment, but I find the Elton influence coming through, obviously the Motley influence with Home Sweet Home, but to be frank overall I just find them weak imitations of Stairway - following that 'epic ballad' formula.

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so yeah.... how many Appetites do you think they could have made even if Axl was interested in selling out like that to live like The Stones and without Izzy? I'm guessing less than 5. I wonder if it would have been that good or interesting for a band like Gn'R to do that. It might look good on paper but I just don't think that was ever a direction Axl would have been very good at pursuing.

Probably something I haven't said enough in this whole debate is I love Lies as much as I love Appetite. I don't can't think of anyone who did an album like that in the 80's. It was massively different to Appetite so I think if they stuck together there would have been an evolution I just think it would have been in a cooler and more sustainable direction. I certainly agree Appetite 5x over wouldn't be interesting, but from the outset (evidenced by Lies and quite a few interviews) I don't think the band envisaged staying in one genre.

One of the things that made Appetite stand out was the way they pulled essentially different types of songs into one cohesive style which no-one else had really done (eg everyone was doing power ballads, but Appetite instead had RQ & SCOM : if you think about RQ its the same format as Patience & UYI ballads (ie the epic ballad), they just did it in a unique way. SCOM I don't even know what I can compare it to its like a hybrid of formulas). If they replaced either of those with say Don't Cry it would have made the album more like every other album doing the rounds at the time. Appetite/Lies were different, creative and showed the band was prepared to do their own thing.

Having a hit hard rock song is a really hard thing to do - having a hit ballad is much easier - just look at how many bands in the 80's had their biggest hit the power ballad. In the 80's GNR eschewed this, by the 90's they were embracing the cliche.

11 minutes ago, Rovim said:

I think Axl always wanted Gn'R to be a huge success but not at the cost of compromising his musical integrity, at least when it comes to studio albums so the source of many of the problems between him and other band members was maybe that he wanted to realize his vision for Gn'R at almost all cost. He talked about how Slash and Duff refused to work on NR and Estranged and he kinda had to force them to do it for example.

 

I think Axl massively compromised musical integrity for $$ and continues to do so. Why did he force the others to work on those tunes ? Commercial cross over, (some would say sell out) = $$. Would a wiser decision been to have put one out and hold one back. Remember Axl wanted NR on Appetite as well - what a stain it would have been on that album - how much wiser was it to keep it off that album ? As as been made in this thread, those songs/videos particularly NR crossed them over into the non-rock/more casual crowd, but at the same time made them look ridiculous next to Nirvana amongst the rock crowd. Why wasn't CD a solo album - answer GNR name brings in more $$. Why did he want the name - answer brand name = value = $$. Why are Duff & Slash back now - answer they were the only ones with the power to block things, need them for the $$ (plus ticket sales more $$). Why aren't Izzy / Steve back now - they clearly perform the material better than anyone else - answer they cost more $$ meaning less for the others. Highly successful bands have mountains of cash and can afford to have integrity. It is the bands struggling that need to make compromises they wouldn't have to otherwise. These guys have more cash than they can spend, and yet to get a bit more will go onstage with an inferior line up - that isn't integrity or credibility. KISS who often get ridiculed in this regard - for a long time paid to have a stand in at the ready in case Ace didn't make it to the stage - they were prepared to pay to give the best chance of the best line up being on stage. I don't get that attitude from Axl at all.

Band like Zep, RATM, Pantera have true integrity. Lose key band members = different band = new name or retire the name. 

There was another thread where someone had a T-shirt they released saying 'Freedom Through Musical Integrity' or something. I found it hilarious. Should have said 'Use Your Delusion'.

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so maybe the intention wasn't to destroy Gn'R, or to drive them away, but to find the right direction to move forward.

I agree with you here - it certainly wasn't his intention to destroy GNR, I think he really believed in his head that the direction was vital for ongoing success. However I think his radar was way off and with unfettered power he was able to go in a poor direction without any checks. Which is my point all along with the various evidence if he had that power during the Appetite/Lies era he also would have went in a terrible direction, it was only because the others were there to not only reign him in but also give all these other great directions/inputs.

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I still think it wasn't just Axl who ruined everything. That's just too easy of a way to dismiss what I think were real efforts to save Gn'R from becoming obsolete kinda like what U2 did with Achtung Baby for example.

I agree with you here as well. Everything wasn't Axl. The catalyst for the decline was ultimately heroin and the beginning of the end was Steve not being able to get out of its grip in mid-1990. If Steve had of been able to record and didn't get himself fired we would have seen a very different path for GN'R as the balance would have remained in tact. Having said that I don't think it was all Adler's fault either - he just happened to be the one having the issues at the wrong time. They had been trying to get that album recorded for well over a year and at various times it was Axl, Slash, Izzy or Adler fucking things up and delaying the recording - usually multiple of them. It just so happened that at the time the other 4 were ready to go and the pressure mounting up that Steve was the one with the issue at that time.

28 minutes ago, Rovim said:

both Axl and Izzy seem like interesting characters, idiosyncratic. It sucks but I believe in a way it's what made it possible to have Gn'R in the first place. I think Izzy knew how to adapt quickly and just threw the equation of his life out the window as soon as he was ready for a change cause he wasn't satisfied with the direction it was going.

Maybe he always knew what he wanted and went after it, like Axl but they wanted different things. For a time there they wanted the same thing but after their goals changed, the relationship fell apart. It happens.

To me this is the balance point - prior to Izzy leaving the band had already lost Adler & Niven and added Dizzy / elevated Goldestein (Axl yes men), so things were quite different. GNR was this finely tuned machine where they were quite different characters on one hand, but gelled perfectly on the other - because each bought something vital and left the whole thing in perfect balance. Axl held strong views, but his radar was quite often off. It was mainly Niven, Izzy and Adler that would check this. Niven had a strong personality and ensured the direction represented all 5. Izzy had known him a long time and wouldn't go along with anything he didn't think was right and Adler was vocal and just blurt out what the others were thinking but unwilling to say such that Axl would at least hear the message. Slash & Duff by there own admission would tip toe around and not rock the boat. At this point Axl had effective control of the band unchecked, which later got cemented with the ownership of the name. It's not surprise that the 3 outed were the ones outed and that the band went careering off into implosion subsequently. 

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the reason for the lack of forward momentum is a bit more complicated imo. I think it has a lot to do with Axl absolutely refusing to put out an album that won't be exactly what a modren Gn'R album is supposed to deliver musically, and also the focus on cashing in with the NITL tour.

IMO the much simpler theory, which is what I've been arguing and providing evidence for is that Axl just isn't capable. Great frontman, awesome with the AFD5 around him to make up for his deficiencies. But musical genius that could carry the band on his own - not a chance. The combination of poor decisions, ego and perfectionism ground the whole creative thing to a halt. Given he has control now I don't expect there will ever be another album, even if there was one tomorrow 2 albums in 30 years is still a poor reflection.

There are a huge number of talented front ment out there who left bands they were known for and went on to renewed success either solo or in new bands (Rotten, Coverdale, Roth, Mustaine, Weiland, Idol, Ozzy, Anselmo, Plant, Clapton, Stewart, all the Beatles, Grohl, Halford etc etc). Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, Iggy Pop, Mustaine again even lost all/most of their backing bands and kept the name and kept delivering.

If Axl was such an immense talent that carried GN'R how come he was incapable of doing what so many have done before - even with the unparalleled advantage he had ?

The much simpler explanation that I keep pushing is key & critical ingredient but a long way from the whole or even the majority of the story.

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The ambition of Axl, Slash, and I think even Duff was to continue to be the biggest band they could possibly be. This is not what Izzy wanted?

The irony of this statement is because the whole balance was lost and the checks to behaviour & decisions were gone.....the whole thing imploded. If they wanted to achieve that goal it would have been better judgement to listen to the others instead of firing/forcing out. 

1 hour ago, Rovim said:

Axl's importance is just undeniable and Gn'R's accomplishmets versus what the rest of the band achieved without him paint a very clear picture.  It's not as attractive of a band without him.

These are the types of things that are very easy to say - but where is any supportive evidence ? The only support for the statement 'his importance is undeniable' that has been put forward so far is that he had the vision for 3 music videos - videos that some love and others find bloated, pretentious, not particularly creative just throw a lot of money and hope it impresses type sagas.

I'll give some evidence to the contrary again :

Slash / Duff starting again from scratch = #1 album

Axl with the biggest asset of all the GN'R brand name + record deal / record co + existing management + whatever had been written / rehearsed + most expensive album ever made + long gestation leading to one of the most mythical and highly anticipated albums + deal with best buy guaranteeing it will ship platinum out of the gate + free promotion from huge soft drink manufacturer on release = anything half decent should have been a shoe in for one of the biggest albums of all time. Reality - peaked at #3 and nose dived from there. And zero musical output aside.

Conclusion : Slash and Duff prove they can do it without Axl. Axl proves even with unprecedented advantage he can't do it without the others. (And I think there is only 2 maybe 3 VR songs I even like - so its not like I'm even being biased here in some way as a big VR fan).

Slash likes ‘we did a killer version of ...’