guitarpatch

22 minutes ago, Tom2112 said:

 I could step into the role tomorrow and book more tours. There's more to managing a band than keeping them on the road all year around, you have to plan ahead and not overexpose your assets! I don't know how far ahead they have plans, nut in previous times they seemed to book on the go, and make plans around their last minute bookings... that isn't good business, that is exactly how great things slip through your fingers, and you ultimately lose a lot of money. NITL has earned a lot of money... I know, but one right move does not excuse 10 bad ones (appetite for democracy dvd being a great example of badly executing an easy project).

No you couldn’t. Especially since it is illegal in most states for a manager to book an artist shows....

Nobody is making Axl go out on the road. Nobody is going to force him to write and nobody is going to force him to release music he feels isn’t ready. 

I’m certain from experience in the music business that there’s nothing autopilot about managing an act like GNR. You can surely disagree about the direction you see as a finished product, but effort and the ability to make that machine function shouldn’t be called into question. That’s a job few can pull off for as long as they’ve been there 

1 hour ago, ronartest2004 said:

Just a gut a feeling. And I’d imagine I’m correct. And the difference with those listed above is that those people were good managers, TB are not.

Those managers didn’t have to deal with 20 plus years of message boards and social media. I just think no one here can say what kind of job they’ve done. We just don’t know enough 

Also, Peter Grant was also a maniac by the end of the Zeppelin. Paranoid, coked out, and abusive to his colleagues that he worked with. He brought in heavily armed security to deal with fans. Said you were either a “friend or a foe”.

The guy got his start by being a bouncer at a night club. I wonder how this community would have spun all of that 

7 minutes ago, NTONIUS said:

TB is almost like a little occult. Over-possessive spouse type shit. Fuckn shame. And if they are such a good influence where the fuck's the music, interviews, any contact what so ever other than sarcastic half confirmed BS. Love this band to death just something doesnt seem right. Gotta hope Slash and Duff, musicians with integrity and independence can really push shit forward. My gut is TB low key slows shit down.

Artist management is totally dependent upon what the artist wants. That includes how they want to be managed. Certainly there’s trust there and I’m sure there’s a certain amount of push back on both sides on certain issues. 

That being said, everything you’ve mentioned can be said about every past manager after 1994. Your answer to why is probably the common player to it all. It’s Axl. No manager is going to make him do big picture things he’s not comfortable doing and if they do, they probably don’t last long 

17 minutes ago, Axl_morris said:

Haha if you go around asking to meet axl and are giving phoney information, that's a given. You were just new to the game. 

Axl signs and meets enough fans, also remember the Brooklyn bowl gig axl was really unwell, I wouldn't blame him. I think he had diarrhea or something.

Best thing is to respect yourself and don't chase after celebrities. I done it in my youth and it's kinda lame looking back

Just going to say it kind of sounds like he did his job above. Cleared the area for the talent to come through and at the same time fans had a look safely from across the street 

As far as tickets, who knows. Those guys have a million things going on close to show time and easily get pulled away. Plus it was a hard ticket to find and I’m sure there were requests left and right from people in the area. Can’t fault him there either

Should of hung out at the box office all day looking for a ticket drop if you wanted to get in 

2 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Those retarded outlets like blabbermouth and alternativenation read this forum. A thread with this name will have them read it and post about it, it's just a matter of time and then it will spread like a wildfire and it might end up affecting the release date haha

It’s still 6 months out. I wouldn’t say it affects anything to push it. It’s more of the pressure it puts on everyone to deliver something. Although everyone forgets after 4 days anyways   

However for example. If they wanted to keep things silent and hit with a major announcement and capitalize with preorder options simultaneously, this could deflate things as the cat is officially out of the bag 

Who knows. I’m interested to see how they roll things out. I hope it goes well

8 minutes ago, Crowebar said:

Axl should fire the guy if it's really him. I sure as hell would. Like wtf?? Dude announces a new gnr anything on reddit ffs? 😂 One would like to believe and think it'd be Axl/GnR doing that on their official web page no? "This whole thing is fucked up..." 

Luckily this alleged proclamation hasn’t picked up any major steam online. I’d say the damage hasn’t been done yet to affect a timeline (if there even is one at this point)

Timing is paramount in today’s music scene. Attention spans are minimal and you really need a short burst strategy to get traction.

I’m actually interested in seeing how they roll this out when it’s time

13 minutes ago, oneway23 said:

Especially in this day & age.  I know a few bands do, but, no band really wants to play a new song live anymore because of youtube.

I would also couple it with the fact that 90 percent of the audience doesn’t want to hear it 

However yes. If they play something new that video would be making press rounds and god forbid it’s not the best performance. Could deflate any momentum they had in mind for a release even if it were good. Timing is everything these days

That being said, “Victory or Death”? 

1 hour ago, Alejandro GNR said:

Just my opinion...its true, Metallica and Maiden are faaar superior in what they offer to fans. I just feel Axl must be pretty hard to “force” his brand to do things. I may be wrong but only TB and Axl know the truth hahaha

If I was Fernando’s friend I would drive him nuts with my GnR inquires hahahaha

GNR is still under control of UMG’s contract from the 90’s. Once that is up then it’s fair to compare what’s offered as they’d be on the same playing field. The issue is that they haven’t released enough material to rid themselves of a draconian contract to step into their peers situations. Whether their fault or not.

Until then, it makes absolutely no sense to release proshots and let UMG rake in the profits from it. 

Just now, Nicklord said:

I'd more like to say fuck you Axl. He rejected pretty much every Buckethead's idea and dude had some great ones 

They were years into the project by then and working on what was close to being done. Maybe he has a whole record full of a buckethead songs w vocals. We have no idea 

Just now, Tom-Ass said:

Fuck yeah!! Get Your Wings is my favorite Aerosmith Record.. Some great Alice Cooper stuff too. The guy knows great music.. Axl didn't have any... 

The guy also wants to make a living so who knows what the motives were. 

I personally don’t need Bob Ezrin to tell me which songs I like/dislike. To each their own 

19 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

From my understanding, Bob Ezrin was gone by February 2001 so you're basically blaming a circa seven year delay (2001-2008) on a guy who had long since departed! And a delay that is still counting pertaining to Chinese's sequels (probably up to around seventeen years now). 

I know you love Rose and wish to absolve him of all blame, but...!

I would think the 02 tour fiasco and Bucket leaving wasn’t the best environment for a release either.....Then you had Merck and a dwindling record business 

30 minutes ago, appetite4illusions said:

A producer has one real hope when they make an album: that it will have hits on it.

 

It's nice to make art and work on something that will potentially be remembered, but the bottom line when a producer puts his name on something is that he or she, wants it to be commercially successful. 

I don't blame Ezrin for telling Axl he only had a few songs, because as much as I like Chinese Democracy, I only hear several "hits" on it, too.

 

Axl rejected the fundamental element that people love about GnR songs: Anthems. 

Paradise City, Sweet Child, Jungle, You Could Be Mine, Nighttrain...fuck...even Knocking on Heaven's Door! A folk song...was turned into an anthem, with a big chorus. Those are "hits" those are "single material."

Axl wrote one song - one song - as an anthem on Chinese Democracy...the title track...and it was the obvious choice as the single, because it stood alone as having that anthemic element. 

 

Ezrin wanted hit songs. He knew Axl was more than capable of writing them, but he didn't hear them on Chinese Democracy and he was right...because the album when it came out years later, didn't have the goods to stay on radio. Axl's fault on that one.

By the time it was released, rock radio had changed considerably since the late 90’s. It wasn’t the giant it once was nor did plays mean lack of success. People had gravitated away from using it as a source of what’s current

Industry was changing 

Lets also not pretend that UMG put any $ behind radio promo. They weren’t going to pay another million and hire the guys from Hits to keep the song on air. That’s how corporate stations were running then. Still have to grease some hands 

How was the record doing on Big Champagne?

Just now, gabfm said:

Grow up guys ! Bob Ezrin refused to work on the album, but he didn't tell the company "it sucks, don't do it". The company rejected the album because of the new sound. They wanted hits and hard rock.

I doubt they wanted hard rock. They wanted Foo Fighters at most

32 minutes ago, Pacha said:

 

Yes, I also think that a couple of CD songs could have worked commercially. I still hear time to time Better on the radio. But I still think they are far from the great hits that GNR has.

 Maybe the record company wanted a new Sweet child or Jungle

The record company wanted to recoup its investment or use it as a 4th qtr loss write off regardless of the material. With piracy rampant, sales dwindling and no Slash, it wasn’t exactly the most reassuring environment for a release to begin with. 

Couple that w the 02 tour riot/cancellation and buckethead leaving, it took nearly 4 yrs for the band to regroup and start again.  It doesn’t sound like the most stable timeline. Who knows what went down but those situations certainly didn’t help

6 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Blaming it on the songs being over-produced would be a convenient explanation for why he rejected the material and caused such a length delay of the release, considering that most people thought the final product was exactly that: over-produced and a mess. Better than saying, say, that Axl wasn't interested in his contributions.

Sounds most like he wanted to come on board and get some writing credits. I’m sure he’s said something similar to that to sell his services before 

2 minutes ago, Arnuld said:

Can’t really blame the label too much other than the Bob Ezrin fiasco. They poured a fuck ton of money into that project and just wanted to recoup their investment. Best Buy probably got them back to even and they didn’t want to invest millions more on marketing after CD didn’t sell as well as expected. Now that Slash and Duff are back they are probably willing to invest in marketing again because sales and streams will be strong and a new release will also peak interest in the back catalog 

It sold like any other major release at the time by 2008 standards. You also don’t spend/create a marketing budget after the initial wave. You do that months out. They never had a plan and wanted out from the beginning. There was no support from the label

If it weren’t for Best Buy they’d sit on it and write off the losses for tax purposes every quarter. That’s how that project was viewed by 2006.  

9 minutes ago, Creed said:

but somehow they must have fullfilled the contract, cause i can not remember any pushing after the CD release.

They haven’t fulfilled the contract. It’s why they can’t just release an album in the past or these demos on a whim. The contract is from the old industry model. They have prenegotiated advances for releases 

The marketing was a huge issue after the Best Buy deal. They essentially wiped their hands and provided no support once they got a check. Part of that was supposedly the reason why CDII never came. They wanted to see a plan from the label who wasn’t willing to sink costs/manpower on top of an advance. 

10 minutes ago, Wagszilla said:

The leaks sound incredible. 

I'd say from Rough Mixes CD #1-#3, excluding material that made Chinese Democracy, Axl has 5 really strong cuts and a couple of very interesting B-Sides.

The only legitimate points Bob Ezrin has is that these aren't always highly commercial, mainstream songs. They lack big solos, the themes are more mature, and Axl's lyrics can be alienating.

But Madagascar, Prostitute, The Blues and the new songs like Atlas, Perhaps, and Oklahoma belong in the conversation of the top of Gn'R's Pantheon. 

It doesn't matter, criticism be damned, this all should've been released a long time ago.

It's a shame.

Hope we get vocals on the instrumental tracks and an official release somewhere shortly down the pike. 

 

No one was doing big solos in the late 90’s/2002. The songs are definitely more mature and that’s not a bad thing. There’s a place and need for that. The issue was the huge advance and the label’s need to recoup or write it off 

Which one’s Kriss and which one’s Kross 

Also the above deal shelved Duff’s album Beautiful Disease when they dropped him

This is a good lesson in publishing vs labels. Duff owned the rights to his publishing but not the actual recordings when the label dropped him. That’s why and how he ended up rerecording those Beautiful Disease songs for the first Loaded record. 

19 minutes ago, BlueJean Baby said:

I believe the contract is with Universal, they own Interscope

Interscope Geffen A&M Records was established in 1999, following the PolyGramand MCA Music Entertainment merger (which created UMG). The label group was created by combining the MCA labels Interscope and Geffen Records with the PolyGram-owned A&M, which, at the time, became dormant. The label operated as one of the newly formed Universal Music Group's four umbrella companies, the other three being The Universal Motown Republic Group, Verve Records and The Island Def Jam Music Group.^[1]

As a result of the merger, a significant percentage of artists and bands were dropped from A&M and Geffen, and though both continued to exist as labels, 280 jobs were eliminated and A&M's Charlie Chaplin lotoffices were closed. The reorganization, expected to produce $300 million in savings annually, was described by the Los Angeles Times as underscoring the "changing economics and direction of the music business."^[2][3]

As independent labels, A&M and Geffen were revered and had achieved substantial commercial and artistic success. Both had been sold by their founders, however, and both had suffered from budget restraints and unproductive band signings over the previous years. At the time of the merger neither label had records in the Billboard Top 40 while Interscope had "defined the new sound of young America" with hit records from artists including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Limp Bizkit, and Bush, among others. Interscope co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field were named co-chairmen of IGA at its launch.

4 minutes ago, username05 said:

That doesn't mean that there are no legal limits from previous contracts, or even worse...some songs might be left under contract with a 3rd party or whatever. If interscope was paying for CD sessions they probably keept some sort of rights to unpublished and published material. I wonder I'd axl managed to obtain all rights, or will inter dictate something with future publishing.

Hence the Black frog note on CDs is ominous.

Publishing company is not the same as a record label.  

UMG is the label. From my understanding they are still under contract that goes back to Geffen. It’s probably been renegotiated countless times through the years. There’s probably still an advance tied to a release

18 minutes ago, papashaun said:

I get what you're saying with contributions from others....but Axl would not have hurt the GnR' "Brand" at all by releasing the album under a different band name or solo album either way. GnR was already established as what I call a "Brand" Band...Bands that reach a status through marketing, to which they almost become a company instead of just a band. (Examples: Rolling Stones, Metallica, Nirvana, Beatles, etc...). Even if GnR didn't reform, you'd still see T-Shirts, merchandise, etc...in the pop culture world. When bands reach that status, it's Iconic at that point...he would have thrown nothing away by using a new band name or making Chinese a solo album. The Guns n Roses brand wouldn't just "die out." 

If anything, I believe Axl would have made the album/albums "HE" wanted to make, and gotten that out of his system by the mid-late 2000s. Would he have been as successful as Guns n Roses under a new band name or as a solo artist....I don't think so....but that doesn't mean it would have been a failure. It would probably have been comparable to Paul McCartney under the Wings banner, no matter what he made, he wasn't going to top The Beatles, but did find his own success. But, by the mid-late 2000s, the original GnR members, or at least the majority, may have been ready to give it another go by that point. The Not in This Lifetime Tour could have happened 7-10 years sooner, another GnR album could have already dropped, and everyone could have been enjoying retirement at this point...possibly. 

Think about this example....pure example....How would you feel if all the members of Metallica left the band, apart from James Hetfield. James decides to keep the Metallica "name" going, but hires 3 new musicians from a Non-Metal background. Puts out an album with a more pop/country sound that resembles nothing that Metallica attempted before, under the band name. The same thing would happen to James in that scenario....everyone would question why this release was put out under the Metallica banner, when no one is left but James, and it doesn't resemble the Metallica sound/style at all. Using the "Metallica" name would be wrong in that scenario as well. 

It’s their lives and their bands. In Axl’s case he had the name. If Metallica w Hetfield wanted to go country that’s their prerogative. Why hold artists to these preconceived boundaries? Don’t you want them to express themselves through their art the way they see fit? The Beatles went through a lot of changes between Meet The Beatles and Revolver. Some would say they sound like completely different bands. By the end Ringo wasn’t even playing drums on singles. 

It’s your choice to like it or not as a fan. 

Id say there’s a freak ton of what ifs for the above to play out the way you said above. Nobody knows how it would play out. Maybe this way is the only scenario where you’d get Slash back in the band. We can either accept reality or not 

1 minute ago, D.. said:

Conclusions on that time period only (1999-2001). Who knows, maybe he did record a lot after that. There are talks of 40/50 unheard songs with full vocals. Who knows.

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough in my post (& sorry for my approximative english) but my point was, he could have released an album in 2001 had he laid down vocals on most of the instrumental stuff & wasn't so butthurt about Ezrin's advice/take. Instead, it was a clusterfuck for another 7 years and we ended up with CD 2008. And nothing since then. 11 years without a single official new song. Blows my mind.

You have no idea how Axl took that. You also have no idea what other forces contributed to the delays. Maybe one day we get the whole story