I think you're just paranoid about Axl & TB's way of working.

I think so far this thing has been handled beautifully. I don't feel Slash's comments in that interview last year about burying the hatchet with Axl was by accident. I think plans were already underway. It had already been a year since Ron left, and Ron dropped hints about "something else" is happening and refused to comment further. He knew. Not long after that DJ left, and there had been rumors Tommy had been out for months as well, but when Tommy was asked, he just retreated back to "I don't know what they're doing", but there seemed to be an idea that Tommy knew EXACTLY what they were doing. He was just passing the football down the field, and avoiding the subject.

What has happened, is FOR ONCE, Axl's silence gimmick has actually worked in Guns favor. They are more than likely trying to get the business into a bidding war over GN'R, and the price just goes higher and higher. They also are probably taking different bids on a re-grouping lineup tour vs. AFD 5 tour, and what the logistics of that would be if Steven or Izzy become full-time "Part-time" members. We also don't know, and there have been rumors, of them trying to negotiate the release of the next album. Whether Slash & Duff are a part of that, either studio or live -- who knows? But there are other chips being moved.
I don't believe Eddie Trunk for a second that this is all about "taking it easy, seeing how it goes", and that's the reason for the silence. Surely Axl & his camp knows how HUGE this would all be. One of the difficulties of having Team Brazil handle this is that they aren't qualified to handle this, but yet they are the only management group Axl trusts. This is integral. Other more qualified groups (Irving Azoff) who would nail something like this -- Axl doensn't trust. But obviously those doors are still open because AEG is apart of this re-grouping. So there are still professionals involved, on some level.

Remember, Slash & Duff don't run the business aspect of GN'R. This is still Axl's show. Slash & Duff might get a cut, and some say, but Axl still has executive decision. What this means, is NONE of them have a concrete answer for the slew of questions they'll surely be asked. This is the honest reason (imo) Axl cancelled his Jimmy Kimmel appearence. This is also the reason for the deafening silence from not just Slash & Duff, but also Steven & Matt.

Why not just come right out and admit what's going on? Do promo and make this whole thing huge... because nothing is ready to be announced right now. There is no tour announcement right now, yet industry insiders have said, the same that called the reunion last year -- have all said "yes, this is being worked on". What do they have to gain? Well... it depends. I'm sure the price for this rumored tour will be an entirely different number if it's Axl, Slash, Duff & Dizzy with new Guns vs. AFD 5 + Dizzy - Chris. Not to mention an AFD 5 tour means a bigger cut for others, mainly Izzy. Izzy isn't going to take Richard money to do a show like this, and surely Slash isn't going to let Steven get hosed on fee, so he, Axl & Duff can get rich off of it.

Those are two entirely different bids. Do different promotions. People keep saying, "it's up to the band to decide what they want to do". That could be very true. The band could be deciding between touring a reboot version, picking up where they left off in 1993, or they could be mulling a full reunion tour. Again, who knows?

But having the silence isn't business as usual... not this time imo. There's a methodology behind it. Axl, Slash & TB HAVE TO KNOW, that the first moment that Axl & Slash embrace or are seen on a stage that it's gonna be a huge moment. HUGE. I'd say bigger than Roger or David or Robert & Jimmy, mainly because Axl & Slash were NOT on good terms for such a long time, although they never reached a level of absolute hatred, but they certainly skirted it for a long time. Izzy came across as more hateful towards Axl than any of them.

We also don't know what the stipulations of the deal with Coachella is. Coachella is televised every year on both TV and internet. There could be contractual obligations that the first appearence must be with Coachella. "Yeah, but what about Vegas?" Vegas more than likely are truly warm-up shows, and are not going to be televised in any form. I also think the band will use the hype of cellphone recordings to try to hype the Coachella appearence on a mainstream level. BUT... for that to work properly, Axl has to come in and at least be 2010 Axl, not the crap he's been since 2011. Axl has to come in and nail the warm-up show, lol. But... it could be where their head is.

So far, nobody has had to spend a dime on promo, yet it's all the music industry has talked about. So it's definitely working for them right now, as opposed to against them.

I have never ever bought that Izzy stuff about the "charging them" thing. This was in 2006, and Izzy was obviously brought back SEVERAL times later, and also stayed loyal to Axl to the last few years, mainly during the Rock Hall fiasco with Axl, Izzy & Dizzy on their island, and Slash, Duff, Steven & Matt on theirs. I think the Izzy charging them thing was a miscommunication or disagreement, and when Axl was interviewed and made that statement it was at a time he was feuding with Izzy. Next week they could be best buddies. It seems Izzy has this same relationship with Slash & Duff as well. Izzy is Izzy, and is consistently unpredictable.

I do believe that if they are considering a 25-date summer tour, there could be considerations to put out a 2-disc best-of set, as well as Chinese II. We also don't know if Chinese II will feature re-records from Slash & Duff, not only on CD2, but also a re-release of Chinese as 2nd disc with Slash & Duff re-records, in an effort to just wipe the CD era completely off the map and pretend like Robin, Bucket, DJ, Ron, Paul, & Tommy were ever there, and make them more traditional GN'R songs in an effort to be more mass marketable.

In other words, the silence could be there, not because they are not doing anything, but because they are doing something. They could be *drum roll* -- WORKING on stuff. Something GN'R fans are completely NOT used to, lol. At least not since the early 90's, haha.

I also never bought the whole "I was only told 30 minutes ahead" of the Eddie Trunk thing in Miami. If Axl was truly THAT fragile, Axl wouldn't even be able to go out of the fucking house without needing a multitude of medications. I don't buy that. Axl may have trust issues, but he's far too high functioning to be that crazy. He might be a dick, but crazy -- I don't buy it.

If Axl was told 30 minutes ahead of time, that's because he has PISS POOR management. Not because he's a child.

According to Tommy, Axl was directly communicating with him involving new tours when Tommy had to decline them and what ultimately led to the return of Mr. Duff "Rose" McKagan.

I don't blame you for wanting a big corporation like Geffen to be behind this push, but Axl doesn't trust them, and frankly I don't blame him. Ever watch the History of the Eagles documentary? David Geffen basically helped build The Eagles, and The Eagles got hosed and they VERY MUCH trusted him and he screwed them royally, and they sued and there was NO LOVE LOST between them and him. Geffen was also, despite 30 years in the future, unapologetic about giving them a horrible deal that basically paid him 60% of their royalties off of their earlier records. You could see Geffen felt he was OWED that money and had no regrets about fucking them over.

If that's the kind of man that Axl & GN'R were working with back in the day, I could totally see why Axl trusts no one in the business, and wants to only work with Team Brazil, and everyone else can fuck off. He wants people he can trust around him imo. And that's been a priority since the Yoda days. Axl was consulting fringe psychics, because he had such a distrust of industry people and assistants and management. I don't blame him. These people are scum sucking dogs that would kill their own mother for an extra $10 bucks this week.

This. Neemo totally nails it. This is BIG. Really BIG. There's probably an ARMY of lawyers that negotiated this, in addition to TB, AEG, and the big 'uns of Axl, Slash & Duff, who are business-minded guys as well.

The silence has played right into their hands so far, and the Star Wars teaser was a total coup. Good on them.

And again, agreed on the legal ramblings. Right now, there's A-LOT of moving parts to this, and Axl, Slash & Duff just do not have answers to the questions everyone wants to know right now. I still think they are trying to work Izzy, Steven and possibly even Matt into this somehow, and figuring what the logistics of it will be, plus what kind of money they are looking at for a Mark XI lineup tour vs. the price for an AFD 5 reunion tour, as well as what catalog material they have they can put out.

Something of this scale takes time.

I think alot of this has been overblown over the years, and Axl has said so himself. He did one interview with RS in 1992, and suddenly his craziness hit almost mythic status by the time he did a follow-up interview with RS in 2000. It's only grown over time. People still talk about cancellations and late shows, but if you look at GN'R as a whole as a touring outfit in the last 30 years, it's been a drop in the bucket and Axl has a great batting average at being on time, prepared, and professional.

But that's not how the media plays it. And it's just kind of went on and on.

The last place someone like Axl Rose should be is in jail or a mental institution. Jails just make psychotics more evil, and mental institutions take normal, unique people and turn them psychotic. It's a big waste. Axl is a kink to the system, and just doesn't operate the way they do, and that fucks their world up and they have to adapt to how he works. He's kind of like the Trump of the rock world.

Yes. Let's not forget, Slash & Duff supposedly both loathed "My World".

Duff later cited it as his favorite GN'R tune, but I always thought he was taking the piss.

Agreed on all fronts. That's the reason this GN'R reunion thing caught on so fast, and the reason Glenn Frey, David Bowie & Lemmy's death's were all front-page news. Rock IS STARVED for SOME-THING. Now all these acts are out there, old, and being told "irrelevant" (like Guns), and yet GN'R is commanding more per show than in the fucking history of live performing. Ain't too irrelevant. But look at the rest. Look how much Sammy Hagar works. But Sammy refuses to do new albums. Why? Because there's no money in it, and Hagar has beat the pavement trying to promote NEW music, and he walks into a rock radio station, they play his song once, humor him, and as soon as he leaves they're playing Winner Takes It All from Over The Top for the 8 billionth time. Sammy says there's no point. Plus, look at Hagar... ain't he like 68 fucking years old? Look at David Coverdale touring Whitesnake as a Deep Purple coverband right now at 63 or 64. Frey died and was like 67. What will The Eagles do? Some are saying Bernie (forget his last name), one of the founding members is gonna come back. Too much money to be made. Look at KISS. Paul & Gene have already conceptualized how to retire, and replace themselves in their own band and keep it going, ala Mick Jones and Foreigner out there with no original members. And guess what? Foreigner still does REALLY GOOD business. And yet no one cares.

But when these guys, like KISS, like the Stones, and others start dying off perminately. Rock my die forever with them. I don't see this business propping up rock and keeping it alive after these guys are gone. I just don't. The entire business model is totally different, even though there's a whole market out there for classic rock/metal.

Girls have NEVER cared about music, because that's girls. Unless you're fucking a Lzzy Hale who plays guitar and could tell you every cut off of Ultramega OK & Kill 'Em All, most girls don't know shit about music, because girls aren't like that. Girls are all about the singles. Because it catches them. They also tie their musical tastes in with the social scene, and thus -- ONLY listen to what's popular, and never listen to an artist that's against the grain. Even if you have an Emo who digs Paramore, because she's an outcast, she still has TONS of other Emo's that listen to Paramore, because that's what they've been told to listen to.

For example, I meet a girl shortly after Michael Jackson's death, and we were introducing ourselves, and she had an MJ shirt on, like all the bandwagoners in 2009 did. So I asked her about it, and she just went on and on and  on about how Michael Jackson was her favorite artist ever, and MJ is her life, and she's gonna go to NYC and become a dancer, he's just such an inspiration to her, and blah blah blah.

So I told her my favorite MJ song was "Stranger In Moscow", which is kind of a MJ deep cut. She had no clue what I was talking about. That's okay. Not all MJ fans do. So then I asked her favorite and I got the classic, "ohhh, I don't know. I couldn't say. It's hard to choose. I love that one song, what's its name... umm... darn I can't remember it". So I asked her, what's her favorite album? She said, "oh, Number Ones"

I had my answer. Folks... THIS is your typical female music fan.

This statement is completely untrue. Matlock is NOT on Netflix.

I know...

I spent the $100 large to buy the Complete Series 9-season set for my Dad for Christmas.

*cue Matlock end credit producer card Dixieland bullshit*

Just to correct you -- HIGH FRUCTOSE Corn Syrup is the real killer. Corn Syrup, not so much. High Fructose Corn Syrup is Genetically Modified by the good folks at Monsanto (the same people who brought you Agent Orange). The HFCS is almost entirely synthetic and the body cannot process it. Worse than regular Corn or Corn Syrup. So much so, that the food you convert from the sugars from it, go directly into your artieries as well as other places and it can NEVER be burned off. You have it for life. It also makes you a TON more prone to getting Type 2-Diabetes. Alot of people have noticed when they consume organic Corn, how much easier than can digest it. But most supermarket corn is GMO.

And like you James -- me too. We've got a lot in common, haha. Too much maybe, lol.

I ONLY consume the retro drinks as well. The other day I actually tracked down some imported Mexican Coke. Hard to come by in FL. I bought a case of it, in the old school 12 oz. glass bottles. The thing that's great about Mexican Coke is that it (like all countries not called the USA), it is Coca-Cola with NO HFCS. None. It's made with just sugar. So it tastes AMAZING. Like having a "Coke Throwback", even though Coke doesn't manufacture them in the U.S. And in an old school, thick, ICE COLD glass bottle with the pop-top.

I'll take that over beer ANY DAY. I'm gonna have these on ICE, come that GN'R Coachella YouTube stream. And maybe something extra... haha.

I also drink Pepsi w/ Real Sugar (Throwback), Dr. Pepper Throwback, Mexican Sprite, and occasionally Mountain Dew Throwback. I LOVE Mountain Dew, but that Dew Throwback... just... ain't my thing. I grew up on the GMO HFCS version, and to me -- that's what Dew tastes like.

All of these sodas are poison, but... awhile back I cut ALL High Fructose Corn Syrup out of my diet, including these regular sodas. Of the sodas, I consumed nothing but "throwback" sodas with JUST sugar.

I lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks just with that alteration, and tons of my arm abrasions cleared up. I looked healthier, and yet was still consuming sodas. All because I cut the HFCS sodas out of my life, as well as other processed foods that contained it.

Unreal -- it's poison folks.

This says it all. I HAVE LOVED this revival. Fox is getting good at these, because 24's revived/rebooted 9th Season was really good and classic-24 as well.

What The X-Files is doing is how Dallas should've went. Just get right into it, and pick up where you left off, but in the present. But Dallas was dealing with even more of a convoluted canon, that just confused the shit out of people because it had already been retconned dozens of times in different forms.

What I think has been ACE about this revival is that, they just picked up where they left off. This doesn't feel like a DIFFERENT series. So many shows make that mistake.

Chris Carter revived the show to a T. I mean spot on. The intro, the theme music, the of-kilter dynamic between Mulder & Scully vs. AD Skinner like in the early days, the cinematography, Mark Snow scoring it, taking it back to being filmed in-and-around Vancouver, BC like the earlier episodes, going back and hiring the old writing duo of James Wong & Glen Morgan who were writers/producers on this in the EARLY days of The X-Files. Back when the show was the stuff of legend.

These early Season 10 episodes, feel NOTHING like that abortion "X-Files 2" movie that felt like a lost episode from Season 9.

So far these new episodes have felt like Seasons 1-3. The glory days. Deep Throat, Mr. X, Cig... damn.

What's scary is ALL of the new conspiracy shit they talked about in the first episode is very real and going on right now. Look up Dr. David Jacobs, Global Warming scarcity, FEMA camps... very cool. It's cool Chris Carter merged all the modern day conspiracies, 9/11 hoax, all that shit into the modern revival.

Damn... the conspiracy episode kicked ass (Atari is right tho, dialogue fucking SUCKED with Mulder/Scully, the episode didn't start until Joel McHale & Mulder went Alex Jones on Scully, that's when it KICKED IN)

Then the 2nd episode with the stand alone hybrid thing... that one was EVEN BETTER.

All of my favorite shows have ended or been cancelled. Sons, Justified, Burn Notice, Person of Interest, Dallas, True Detective... only show I have left is The Blacklist.

But having The X-Files back. Like this? It's like going home to meet an old friend. I cannot WAIT for next Monday at 8 o'clock to get here.

FUCK YEAH!