I think he has said it was never intended to be released as a whole. An AFD/CD -hybrid of SCOM was on the Big Daddy soundtrack, while the new WTTJ was almost included on the Black Hawk Down OST.

Occam's razor says it's same reason as Brain was featured on that show. It was the last of the US club tour leg, and the first time since CD's release that the band played in Cali; a manageable distance for Robin and Brain to drive down to the venue from their homes and have some fun. Just an Axl gesture, thanks for all the work and no hard feelings.

It nearly did, funny enough. Everybody was describing the new material as angry, balls-out rock. Where they got cagey is how complete the songs were. They were, in all likelihood, instrumentals. They had an industrial vibe to them. It was like Appetite in the sense that they pooled a lot of pre-existing songs; think ISE. Paul was there to write Axl's share of the songs, because Axl's good at composing piano ballads - he's less than stellar in trying to come up with a rock song on his own.

The Phoenix show is strange. The crux of the story is Slash - he had little business to be there on a Monday night.

The broad strokes of the plan had been carried out thus far. Slash gave that interview in early August, before Guns began rehearsing. There was one telling bit; "the small matter of one Paul Huge, Rose's choice to replace Gilby Clarke and a guitarist who Slash insists he cannot, and will not, work with."

Then again, Axl might've seen shades of the Snakepit conundrum. It was a matter of completely cocked-up timing. Rehearsals started in August. Duff and Matt were dividing their time between Guns and NO. Then, they went on tour.

I'd take that comment with a pinch of salt. Surely, I can imagine Matt and Duff stopping by in LA after that radio show; they had a few days before their next gig. Having said that, during the Arizona show, they'd been on the road for mere two weeks. They were looking at another minor break, followed by a European tour leg; another two weeks. Come October, Steve Jones would resume the Sex Pistols reunion tour. It was hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. They had a record coming out and were obliged to do a minor promotional tour. Any self-respecting musician would've said yes.

Yet, roughly a month after Guns rehearsals started, they were all here. Slash had been left to work with Axl (read: Paul), without the benefit of having Duff and Matt in the room.

Bad energy. An emergency band meeting could've been orchestrated in Arizona to deal with the issues. Slash could've went along with it, as it would've enabled him to play a show with Neurotic. Fun times. Meanwhile, Axl went out to Yoda, to pour out his frustrations, to sample photographs of his band members. Was Slash right, or was Paul a crucial part of Axl's plan? After the show, Axl could've met up with them and said, 'You know, guys... Paul stays.'

A week after the Arizona show, Matt was downplaying the overall presence of Paul. There'd be guests; Brian May's name was tossed around at some point. Axl's subsequent comments corroborated with the general intent to keep Paul in the sidelines.

If it was all on Paul, it's a bit of a stretch. Everybody agreed Paul was to a have a complimenting, behind-the-scenes role to play.

What exactly led to Slash quitting is unknown. He's mentioned the contract negotiations as a factor, as well. Axl was keeping him on a short leash. But it's certainly possible that this Arizona appearance was a tipping point. When the NO tour wrapped, Slash was already moving on. Paul was still there, so that may have been a factor.

Yet Slash had already bashed Paul in the press due to his inclusion to Sympathy. Imagine how Paul would've felt like. His buddy asks him to work with Guns. The lead guitarist, due to communication breakdown with the said friend, badmouths Paul in worldwide media. The modest Paul gets his fifteen minutes of shame for simply doing a favour. Had Slash said, 'Screw Axl's way of recruiting players without my consent', his argument would've been valid and understandable. "Hating" Paul is just barking at the wrong bush.

Then, Axl and Slash had a meeting of minds - on all things aside Paul. Slash insisted Paul was baggage, and yet, come rehearsals in August, he flipped and started saying how good the material was. Ditto Duff, who singled Paul out years after leaving the band. "Dude can't play" is a bit harsh. More likely, Paul was a scapegoat, a convenient opportunity to take potshots at Axl. Had they sat down with Paul and explained to him that this isn't working out, Paul would've likely relocated to Axl's kitchen with a DAT recorder. They really did try to work with him and it's a bit hard to believe Paul would've been in a room with them, without Axl, all smug, as Slash has suggested.

If he had any attitude, it was quite possibly because Slash, a person he'd never had much traffic with prior, had singled him out as a bad person in the press. The best solution would've been to separate them and to get auditions going for a real rhythm player. Slash had to have been extremely demoralized by the August/September rehearsals to quit the band by the time the NO tour wrapped. He tried out the Axl's approach and left the minute they seemingly had an opening to get to work in earnest.

Had Axl caved in and taken Paul out of the room, things might've gone down differently. But the Arizona trip might've been what sealed the deal for Slash.

Prostitute '06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLWIYDa2-gc

Since '02, Axl's alternated between two distinct intros to NR; one being Prostitute and the other one being this.

Get this. Axl thinks NR is a big deal to him as a composer. It's a very old song of his and after it got the Guns treatment, it became quite a hit. Bearing that in mind, Axl must've ranked his piano work on Prostitute highly to play it, incognito, before his crown jewel. Whatever the other bit is, I doubt it's just something he threw together on a whim.

The way Axl tells the story is that he's always tried to protect the band. Money is of little concern to him, he pays people (through litigations or otherwise) to leave him alone. While the way he handled the partnership was an insult to S&D, he sincerely thought he was helping out the band.

A lot of the ire between them could've prolly been resolved by getting them in a room with Duff as the referee. Axl could've said how he feared the band would fall apart like his personal life, and that he feels the pressure of moving on from UYI without Izzy. Slash could've said he's still motivated to be in the band and wanted to build on their mutual foundation, just that touring was a way for him to keep busy and releasing his "rejected" Guns jams was simply means to get the songs out anyway. The entire feud was, in my eyes, muchly about them being in their separate worlds, lacking direct communication and second-guessing what went on in the other person's head.

As for CD... Axl was still in fine form on the 2007 tour in Japan. Next we saw him was 1,5 years later, again in the Far East. Talk about a meltdown. The scariest notion turned out to be that during the Ashba cycle (09-14), the first year was the best for Axl, both in terms of voice and fitness. Much was made of his boozing on tour - this was a far cry from the off-the-handle  '02 Predator, that hit a gay gym by accident in one city. Apparently, he completed his workout, anyway.

CD deflated Axl. True to his nature, he missed every possible release date and blew countless opportunities. And like you said, it was still rushed; the master was completed in September/October '08, the booklet was a shambles. The assets were handled extremely poorly; again, poor project management. Team Brazil would've had the influence to fix those things a long while before the release - they didn't. Everybody was on Axl time. This meant pursuing whatever he wanted, instead of leading him through a number of choices (like cover art) he had to pin down before they would be turned over to Uni.

I bet Azoff came in, took one look at the project and thought to himself, 'Ehh...' It would've still been a mess. The BestBuy exclusive is another thing, a nigh-impossible way to clear the Uni debt. Azoff knew CD would never sell enough with consumers, so he sold the lock, stock and barrel to a corporation. Doing a double album under those circumstances would've meant a double amount of coasters for BestBuy. Axl's absence from the release might've been because he knew he was doing a deal with the Devil to get the album out. It's a hole he dug for himself, sure, but it still hurt.

After hurling things at Slash and Uni, Axl waited for the Van Halen supertour. Never happened. Things just kept going wrong with Azoff, to the point in which Guns were 'blacklisted' from Ticketmaster venues, thus crippling proper US tour. A year or two later, Guns toured US at those very venues, partially to pay off Azoff. It's easy to believe Axl was bummed, bummed, bummed. Look at Rock in Rio 2011, if post-CD was bad, post-2010 tour was worse.

The above is from one of the very last 2010 shows. Axl looks and sounds pretty damn good for someone pushing 49. He's definitely feeling the song, as well. He still had enough vitriol to carry him through one solid year of touring behind the album. To me, RIR '11 was the turning point - that's where we lost him for nearly five years.

Makes sense in a way. Seems as if Josh Freese came up with a Smells Like Teen Spirit knock-off and they pasted an old Slash riff in as an intro.

It's something else to consider all that Slash obsession while they knowingly used his old stuff to spruce up CD