Probably won't happen, but it's an interesting bit of news coming from Slash. Frankly the only reason I would want to hear it would be morbid curiousity.

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GNR disc set for a March release
By MIKE BELL -- Calgary Sun

According to former Guns N' Roses, current Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash, the legendary Chinese Democracy is set for release this spring.

Slash recently told a Philadelphia radio station his former band -- now consisting of only Axl Rose from the original lineup -- has completed the 10-year-in-the-making, on-again, off-again album and is getting ready to finally let the world hear it.

"It's coming out in March," Slash tells the station. "I've been told a lot of things over the years, but it definitely sounds like it's coming out in March."

Slash says he didn't hear the news from Rose himself, admitting, also, he hasn't spoken to his former frontman since he left the band a decade ago -- which has led to much speculation about their relationship.

"I haven't really talked to him directly, but we're not at each others throats, or anything like that -- just to kill all of that bad blood that people keep recreating," Slash explained. "God, it's been going on for 10 years.

"He and I have never had a conversation, an argument ... over that whole 10 years and people have been generating all this animosity.

"But at this point there's no friction going on."

If you want to hear the entire interview, you can check it out at www.gmppodcast.com/tabid/58/mid/380/Ite ... fault.aspx.

And if you want to hear the album, close your eyes and wish it so. Just don't write it down -- you'll only be disappointed.

Wasn't part of the album leaked already?

I'd buy the Chinese Democracy out of curiosity too.

(On a side note, I knew my quote was going to become a signature.)

or at least d/l it. Morbid curiosity, but curiosity nonetheless.

I hadn't heard that it was leaked. It's possible, I guess, but I would have thought one of us around here would have floated some songs around.

It's interesting to hear Slash is apathetic about Axl instead of hating him. Sounds like he had the sense to walk away from The Crazy.

This could be anything from sheer brilliance to "open garbage". My nature causes me to lean toward the latter.

I know that Rolling Stone's end of year (1999) issue had a significant article on the making of the album, and quoted a June '00 release date. Writer also heard 99% completed tracks "Riyadh" and "Madagascar", as I recall.

It was big news, given the lag since UYI I & II, and considered reliable since GN'R had managed to get a track from the sessions on to the End of Days soundtrack. What little we knew....

I'd love to hear Axl doing "I Like To Move It, Move It".

You guys don't have anything better to do since Smile came out, do you?

Any Guns 'n Roses fan, or just music fan for that matter, would be slightly curious to hear what this would sound like. GnR was the most popular band in the world at the height of their success and then it just collapsed under the weight of Axl Roses' ego and burgeoning psychiatric disorder. The Smile comparison is somewhat glib as that album was mythical, or at least grew mythical as time went on, supposedly a rival to Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's. This album is notorious in that according to reports it is the most expensive album ever "made", and between the fifteen years since the release of GnR's last album of original material, the entire band was deposed, rebuilt, deposed again. Then there's the side show component, with Axl's popping up occasionally, looking like a pudgy Dexter Holland, tries to tour, but behaves like it's still 1988, cancels the tour and then crawls away. It's a freak show that almost everyone thinks is going to be a giant mess and not a work of genius.

Ah. So more Invincible than Smile then. Gotcha.