That's right.

GNR is and always has been at Geffen's roster, but the corporate merger with Seagram in January '99 left Geffen asset-stripped, which is why it survived as an imprint, but the major artists were put under Interscope staff, with Jimmy Iovine in the helm. This is why Live Era is released by "Interscope Geffen". Then again, one of the restructured Geffen's first major projects was the End of Days soundtrack, yet OMG was mixed and prepared by Axl and Jimmy Iovine (of Interscope)!. Confused? Don't be. During Geffen's lesser days GNR remained in their roster, but Universal wisely acknowledged that the imprint couldn't support their major artists well enough in the current situation - hence Interscope was called to step in and act as a surrogate.

In mid-2003, Geffen was relaunched as more autonomical label with more push from Universal. Now they were again resourceful enough to deal with their roster - GNR (among others) was switched back from Interscope/Iovine to Geffen, and Axl would once again respond to them regarding the album. Of course their honeymoon was brief, as it took roughly six months for Geffen to terminate CD's funding. GH was again a completely Geffen-based release, as they wanted to push their revival with albums from their biggest sellers. It would've been GH or CD, and we know that story ended.

Currently, Geffen has been back in the game for nearly five years, and the grapevine says trouble is afoot (again). It's very likely that they'll be facing a similar situation than in '99, with several of their artists to be switched to Interscope or dropped altogether (as what happened to Duff and Izzy back in the day). Therefore, if GNR has to make a new deal regarding CD's release (while their recording contract probably still stands - no news of the opposite), it's very likely Axl negotiates with Universal/Interscope, as it looks like that the band would be placed back under Jimmy Iovine's care anyway.

Their contract is with Geffen, but that doesn't mean they have to deal with them much.

Well...

This was posted on UK-based band Unklejam's forum on 10/19/07.

Jamie Hook from HMV, again.

And this from Aussie composer Rob Dougan's forum, posted a month before, on 09/19/07.

So this one Jamie Hook has been sending out mails like these to people in the name of HMV before. Who knows.

Because most mainstream movies play their psychokillers considerably safer than their independent counterparts. Try being hardcore when you get test screenings, target audiences, a major summer release date, a big marketing campaign and the toy companies knocking your door down and my hat goes off to you. With the indies, the creative margin is wider by default, as they won't have to care less about the lowest common denominator. Therefore, it's their psychokillers that really push the envelope and make people squirm.

As for Ledger, I wasn't questioning his acting. I have in fact high hopes for The Dark Knight, as I was pleasantly surprised by Batman Begins. His Joker I do think will rise above the heap of unimpressive comic book villains and could very well be as good (or 'bad') as the movie machine surrounding him allows. What I meant with tacky was that he might now be getting a token Oscar because of his untimely death; Hollywood might give it to him motivated by guilt, instead of his (quite possibly stellar) performance.

Ouch.

Any dream projects you are looking forward to?

I have a solo record that I'm looking forward to doing. But I'm not going to do it until the Velvet Revolver record is done. That will be in the next year or two. - Slash, 01/17/08

Slash is playing hardball. He's making it pretty clear to every other bandmember that VR is his priority, but unless they start working on the next album pretty much immediately after the tour, he'll go out and do his solo album instead. He's obviously not going to take that frontman shit from Scott; he stuck around for Axl in early '94, gave him some demos and once they got rejected, he recorded the first Snakepit album out of them.

That's pretty much Slash's attitude about studio work; do or die. Nothing like dicking around back and forth during the Libertad recording to push his buttons.

It's not looking too good, and Scott can blame himself for giving that impression. I mean, just look at this:

On 01/19, he's at a charity event in Miami without the rest of the band and talks publicly about an STP reunion.

On 01/20, he misses the flight to Utah, where the rest of the band is. The band performs without him.

Granted, they were 2,000 miles apart, so the flight would take about 5-6 hours, provided it was a direct one. All the more reason to show up to the airport early. Scott's travelled well enough to realize this. Other than that, Slash's connections to the Axl camp and Scott's STP talks caused a stir within the band during the Libertad recording; didn't Matt even scold Scott about it, saying something to the effect that "an STP reunion wouldn't shake the music world"? And now Scott's doing it all over again. While these two might be isolated incidents, missing the VR show immediately afterwards doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. I doubt the band that pleased either...

When do you expect to head in the studio?

It depends on how long we continue touring. Right now, we're going through April. I would imagine that, between now and April, a bunch of ideas for summer will probably come up. We'll go as long as necessary and then probably jump in, hopefully right away, start working on the record. - Slash, 12/20/07

So does this look to be a pretty big year for the band?

It's been great so far. We've done a lot of touring. We're definitely not going to tour as much as we did on the last record. That almost killed us. We were out for 2-1/2 years. In April, we are going to start working on the next record. - Slash, 01/17/08

Slash sounds very adamant about finishing the tour off in or by April, after which he'd like the band to immediately start working on new material. The last confirmed tour date so far is on April 1st, so this leg isn't going be exceedingly long. I'd imagine there's no point in touring excessively behind an album with such lackluster sales, and the best solution is to get the band back into the same room, resolve their differences and get on with the third (and final) contractually obligated album. It might even be a good one, a better seller than Libertad (which isn't intended as the world's smallest compliment).

But currently, it doesn't look like a good time for VR to be on tour. They have a lot of things they need to bounce back from.