At the end of the day, Azoff's a businessman and a Shyock to boot. His methods leave a healthy room for questioning, including the war he waged against Live Nation before the merger was began to be considered as a possibility. Trust me - $1,8M is peanuts to him, so it's nothing more than to force Axl's hand to get him into negotiations regarding the US tour.

Not to mention the conditions presented here are beyond absurd. 15% cut of the total gross, from 2008 to eternity, based on an oral agreement? Get real. Nobody cuts a deal like that on paper, so Irving's going to have a field day explaining how on earth they managed to secure it.

As for Goldstein, he makes a good hand puppet, but I fail to have been impressed by his managerial efforts in the past. It's no big surprise GNR didn't accomplish much after the Niven era, but simply ran out of steam. Merck wasn't all that hot, either. Azoff got the album out simply by cutting the best deal in the business and clearing the Universal end. Without him, I doubt the album would've ever seen the light of day.

On Brain / Freese;

You might remember Freese worked as the original session drummer on Chinese Democracy in '98-'00 and recorded the original backing tracks to most songs, even co-writing the title track. Having said that, his sentiments towards the project as a whole might've been similar to those of Slash's solo album. Freese, like many others, had a problem with Axl's timekeeping and the incessant jamming / re-recording. You can't blame the guy for walking out after his contract expired to hang out with Maynard James Keenan.

Brain was never really allowed to rework the drum tracks as such. Axl and then-producer Roy Thomas Baker went for his 'feel', whatever the hell that means, and Brain had to learn all the existing drum tracks and adapt himself to Freese's style, which could be loosely described as more compact and 'punk'. Hence, the older CD tracks with original Freese drum arrangements are actually Brain trying to emulate Freese the best he can, with the occassional quip thrown into it. Inspiring for someone like Brain? Guess again.

No surprise you get the stories of Brain recording at the attic of Village Recording Studios in a former Freemason lodge. The dude was just trying to make the best out of the situation, which obviously meant spending a good deal of Universal money to gain some level of inspiration. This is not meant to lessen Brain, as many other people involved in the project did the same thing, and worse. He simply had resources in his disposal and he took them up.

But that's mainly why you get uninspired Brain drumming based on uninspired Freese arrangements.

They were, they were.

In early 2005, Axl sold Sanctuary his share of the rights on the '86-'98 back catalogue (1/3), along with full publishing rights for the CD tracks. He profited in around $20 Million out of that deal, so no-one needs to feel sorry for 'poor' Axl.

In late 2007, Sanctuary filed bankcruptcy and Uni acquired the assets. They gained control over the GNR publishing rights (1/3 of the back catalogue & 100% of CD) in the process.

The publishing rights for Paradise City are divided between three parties:

- Slash
- Duff
- Universal Music Group

In order for Axl to block the release, he'd need to go through Uni to file a complaint.