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Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
I agree with what was said, Slash is a stage name... any legal binding document would have to be signed by Saul Hudson which makes me think this isn't accurate
Not really. If on the first page of the concract it was disclosed that he would be indentified on it as Slash, it's ok.
Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
The shitty thing is Slash and Duff were so fucked up that they think I gave them the ultimatum and that's why they don't speak to me today
No other reason, Dougie? Not one?
GN'R's management company, Big F D Entertainment (headed up by Doug Goldstein) is suing former bandmembers Slash (Saul Hudson) and Duff McKagan (Michael McKagan) for what Big F D says are monies owed, according to papers dated December 14 and filed in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. The suit claims that the pair is in debt to the company to the tune of at least $400,000.
Slash's lawyer, Zia Modabber, told MTV News that the guitarist's contract with Goldstein ended some time ago and that the manager isn't owed anything. The lawyer added that Slash intends to vigorously defend himself in court.
The filed documents include a copy of Goldstein's contract, which covers not only the bandmembers' work with GN'R, but also the individual members' solo projects. The contract appears to be valid for either a term of three-years or until the last day of the next GN'R tour cycle, which ever comes last. The three-year period appears to have started in October of 1992 and ended in October of 1995.
Note that according to the contract, Dougie got paid for the Snakepit album, among others. Conveniently, Slash was called back from the road in around July 1995, because Axl was "ready to begin working on the next Guns N' Roses record". Only it took another year for Ax to get started - while Dougie's earnings on Snakepit were about to lapse. No reason to keep the man on the tour, just promise Geffen a new album and get him back, announce him Axl's leaving the partnership and begin legal wrangling.
...The key issue apparently lies with the definition and timeline of the term "tour cycle." Big F D legal counsel Bert Deixler told MTV News there's a new Guns N' Roses record on the way (presumably "Chinese Democracy," the project Axl Rose first mentioned to MTV News' Kurt Loder in November of last year) that will give rise to a GN'R tour, and that when that tour is over, the contract will expire. - MTV, 01/04/00
You come out looking like a greedy bastard and woe that those guys dislike you.
It was Reese, I was halfway round the globe!!
Sure, Dougie.
John L. Reese (born 1961) is a Phoenix-born music executive who got started in the music industry by owning a concert security company in Phoenix. That led to Guns N' Roses manager Doug Goldstein hiring him to become the band's tour manager for their 1989 Los Angeles Coliseum concerts with the Rolling Stones, then as the tour manager for the massive Use Your Illusion Tours and then as a partner and personal manager with Big FD Entertainment, representing a number of artists including Guns N' Roses, The Stone Roses, Blind Melon and many more. - Wikipedia
John Reese single-handedly lied to Slash and Duff, papers at hand, without telling Axl and Doug he was leveraging on Axl not showing up on stage to get the signatures. I can so see that... not. 
Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
Hmmm I dunno man, I think we have/are being played by both sides. When you really think about it, would Slash and Duff really sign away Guns N'Roses on the spur of the moment to save one performance cause Axl wouldnt take the stage, would that really be such a big deal? And would Axl be this innocent soul who got control of the name, then in his next move quit the band, disolved the old partnership and formed a new Guns N'Roses and gave Slash and Duff the ultimatum to be employees or get to fuck if he hadnt had any ulterior motive? I think the truth is far more complicated, drawn out, deep rooted and calculated than any one of them will care to admit, and why would they, their business has fuck all to do with the fans. But how they choose to spin it in public...?
*edit
And Slash and Duff never walked off stage in the huff, Slash and Duff never swaned into arenas 2 to 3 hours late, Slash and Duff never had employees exorcise their microphones before playing a show, Slash and Duff were always at the studio waiting hours on end for someone to show up in the middle of the night, Slash and Duff never had to employ a family to be their family and eventually their spin doctors, Slash and Duff never had to send their employees to invade the internet forums and attempt to sway and corrupt fan favour and reinvent history... I could go on and on but the history books show who was the pretentious high maintenance drama queen prima donna in that band, and its not revised history, I'm old enough to remember. Slash and Duff might have been selfish, deviant junkies, but Axl was worse imo, he was cold and calculated... junkie is as junkie does... Axl hoped to exploit them and I wouldnt be suprised if his end game had them in all in a Steven Adler like state and he would be this pious figure standing high and mighty above his junkie scum former bandmates, and it fuckin rips him apart that they are all alive functioning, with beautiful families of their own and every bit as famous and popular as they were back the hey day.
Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
meh...name issue was never an issue...Axl isn't an idiot and Slash and Duff would have pursued that lawsuit had they had a REAL case. PERIOD. That is the long and the short of it. Bigger issue is why is Axl still tied in with Geffen? If he is so miserable, why not negotiate a way out of the contract? He could do it as artists do it ALL the time. I'll tell you why. The long and short of it, again, is that he has weighed his options and figures he makes more money by staying put. It's all about money and financial security at this point. Being middle aged myself, I can't say I blame him. He knows what he/they have in the vault and it's financial potential.
Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
I agree with what was said, Slash is a stage name... any legal binding document would have to be signed by Saul Hudson which makes me think this isn't accurate
If you look at this lawsuit that Slash and Duff filed against Axl in 2004, you'll see that the first page mentions their legal names and also states p/k/a Slash, and p/k/a Duff. P/k/a is "professionally known as". Once their professional names are established on the first page of the suit, the rest of the document refers to them by their professional names.
Ali
Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
The contract copy in my files appears to be the same as the one MSL has, but if you look closely, it's not. The name clause wording is identical, but Slash's initials aren't there (although they are elsewhere), Axl's initials are in a different place and there's a slightly different line break or indentation makes a word appear on different lines. If you compare the last page, the dates are the same but written differently, and the sigs are slightly different. If someone wants to post a side-by-side comparison, knock yourself out. (The first page of these docs has October 1 crossed out and September 1 noted as a replacement date, initialled by Axl, Slash and Duff, I'd like to know what MSL's says). This backs up my guess that there are multiple versions of the contract. Clauses were added, initialled, the last page re-signed. Nobody knows how often or when.
It's a clusterfuck. Every one of these guys is wrong about at least part of it, or unsure. BUT ... nobody's intentionally lying, they all just have faulty memories, messed up dates, their own interpretations, their own version of reality or whatever. Axl's explanation blames the long-gone Alan Niven. WTF? I know what he's saying, but in terms of the literal date translations here, that doesn't add up, does it? And as much as I like Duff and think he's a fine upstanding citizen, he's off his rocker, too. He sure wasn't talking to Doug on July 5 or 6, 1993. Doug's son was born July 5 in California, he definitely wasn't there.
I mean think about it, you still have to wonder about why Slash and Duff would sign this. There was no monetary consideration so why would they do it? If relations were already strained by that time of the tour it further makes you question why they would potentially disadvantage themselves for no reason, unless........ There was some type of duress/threat used to get them to sign.
Slash and Duff wondered the same thing years later. It was too late (and futile) to contest the clause, but they did go for compensation. But at the time it was just a progressively worsening situation, it was almost constant duress with all band business. Once Alan and Izzy were gone, all controls were off Axl. Doug, bless him, was Axl's manager. And to respond to the posts here, he's a 'gets shit done' guy, but he doesn't work with pen and paper, he's a people guy, he's on his headset organizing, making arrangements and especially doing crises management, he could handle Axl because he was his loyal friend and confident. (Or at least when he was in communication with him). He's not a contracts guy and he certainly doesn't give a shit about money.
I seriously doubt either Doug or John Reese (especially) had anything to do with the actual contract, they were just the delivery guys for Axl. I'd suspect that Axl was dealing with Soriano (or whoever) directly. (Which would have been one of the few direct relationships, he sure wasn't talking to the band and not a hell of a lot to management, he almost always used others to deliver his messages, ultimatums, etc, he still does).
Slash and Duff could give in or quit or have Axl quit. No other options. The band had become a dictatorship. They rolled with it as long as they could. The dates, details are immaterial.
Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
Very interesting, they are definitely different. The indentation/formatting on the section down the bottom is different. So is the area where Axl has initialed it. Different signatures too.
What does it all mean? Who knows, other than it appears that there was a lot happening around that time and possibly multiple copies/versions of the documents. Could there be more documents versions? I don't know but I do know we probably don't have all the information to point the finger definitively anywhere.
Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
Ok thinking about this some more and looking at those 2 docs. The original document was prepared on 15th October 1992. Each document has that date in the footnote of each page.
However, those asterixed sections appear to have been added at a later date. If you look at Snooze's copy the font looks different and it clearly seems to have a wider margin on the right hand side. It appears to me that they were typed onto the document at a subsequent time, then the parties were asked to initial the addition.
So why would there by multiple copies, my understanding is that this is not altogether uncommon. Sometimes not everyone is in the same location or documents need to be signed with a sense of urgency. Perhaps this was the case when the original document was prepared in 1992. There might have been 2 or 3 copies prepared??
Fast forward to 1993 and backstage in Barcelona. The lawyers have added those two asterixed sections into the 1992 dated document. Axl himself in his chats told us that the lawyers were with them in Europe working on the Adler case.
These additions have been manually typed into each document. If you carefully look at the wording there are 2 slight differences in the "**" section. The word "the" is missing in MSL's version in the sentence "Duff shall be THE Terminated Partner" . This suggests to me that it was manually typed in to each and human error crept in.
So possibly this section about the name was added to the original document backstage in Barcelona in 1993 and the guys were told to initial it by John Reese or Axl wouldn't go onstage. Did Axl tell Reese to give that directive, did Reese explicitly state it to get them to sign or just intimate it. Or did he not even need to do that, given the previous history Slash and Duff knew what was likely to happen if they didn't sign it.
Who knows, but well done MSL in your quest to demonise Slash and Duff you appear to have started a process which ultimately seems to lend support to them and Goldstein's version rather than expose them as liars. Does this mean Axl lied - not necessarily, but he wasn't there when the documents were given to Slash and Duff so who knows what they were told. They all could be telling the truth - just their side of what happened.
Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
Ok thinking about this some more and looking at those 2 docs. The original document was prepared on 15th October 1992. Each document has that date in the footnote of each page.
However, those asterixed sections appear to have been added at a later date. If you look at Snooze's copy the font looks different and it clearly seems to have a wider margin on the right hand side. It appears to me that they were typed onto the document at a subsequent time, then the parties were asked to initial the addition.
So why would there by multiple copies, my understanding is that this is not altogether uncommon. Sometimes not everyone is in the same location or documents need to be signed with a sense of urgency. Perhaps this was the case when the original document was prepared in 1992. There might have been 2 or 3 copies prepared??
Fast forward to 1993 and backstage in Barcelona. The lawyers have added those two asterixed sections into the 1992 dated document. Axl himself in his chats told us that the lawyers were with them in Europe working on the Adler case.
These additions have been manually typed into each document. If you carefully look at the wording there are 2 slight differences in the "**" section. The word "the" is missing in MSL's version in the sentence "Duff shall be THE Terminated Partner" . This suggests to me that it was manually typed in to each and human error crept in.
So possibly this section about the name was added to the original document backstage in Barcelona in 1993 and the guys were told to initial it by John Reese or Axl wouldn't go onstage. Did Axl tell Reese to give that directive, did Reese explicitly state it to get them to sign or just intimate it. Or did he not even need to do that, given the previous history Slash and Duff knew what was likely to happen if they didn't sign it.
Who knows, but well done MSL you appear to have started a process which ultimately seems to lend support to Slash and Duff and Goldstein's version rather than expose them as liars. Does this mean Axl lied - not necessarily, but he wasn't there when the documents were given to Slash and Duff so who knows what they were told. They all could be telling the truth - just their side of what happened.
The dates are the same next to Slash and Duff's names in both "versions". GN'R in between tour legs on 10/15/92 and 10/21/92. So, Slash and Duff could not have signed the memorandum of agreement while on tour.
Ali
Re: GNR Name Contract (w/ MSL/snooze72 scans)
You have missed the point. Yes the original document seems to have been signed between tours in 1992.
However, it appears that the asterixed sections were added at a later date. That's why the formatting is different, and the margins are different, even a variation in wording. When was the later date we obviously don't know for sure. Could have been 1993?
