Axlin08, it's interesting what you said about Slash. In my view - and bear in mind, I love GN'R in all its incarnations - the general public percieves a band as having two key members. Usually they're the frontman and the lead guitarist (but not always - see Flea in RHCP, or Jimmy Chamberlin in the Pumpkins). Queen without Freddie Mercury isn't Queen; try and imagine the Stones with Mick or Keef missing. You could just about imagine three of the Beatles reuniting in the 70s under the name, as long as two of them were Lennon and McCartney.

For the general public, Guns N' Roses is Axl and That Bloke in the Top Hat. If Slash came back to the band - even if it was the exact same fucking band Axl's touring with at the moment - you can bet your ass that the tabloid press and your mate at the office watercooler would be calling it a reunion. Even though it'd be missing the real essential member of the original lineup, Izzy.

But then, rock trades in icons, and Izzy was always the quiet one. Slash is the sort of character you can recognise from his silhouette alone. Buckethead's another, and it's one of the reasons why there was such buzz around the band before that fucking disastrous, wheezy VMAs performance in 02. I'm not sure that Ron - who I dearly love in all other respects - quite measures up to those two in the iconic stakes.

Assuming Finck has buggered off - at the exact moment when TWAT and Better were poised to make him a genuine guitar hero - then Axl would do well to invite Buckethead back to the fold. I'd be inclined to say "invite Slash", but I don't think his ego would allow him to fit into the new three-guitar setup.

The killing irony for all those who keep wittering on about Slash is that if you put Axl and Slash together at any time from 1996 to now, I don't think you'd get a very good album out of it. Take the uninspired riffs Slash has been coming up with since It's 5 o'Clock Somewhere, and Axl, minus the songwriting of Tobias and Pitman, and you'd end up with a donkey of an album, a real dated clusterfuck.