Not necessarily. Chinese made goods vary from very high quality to the very low and everything in between.

I work in the medical sector and some of the very best instruments on the market in our sector are chinese made. Equally some of the very worst are also chinese made.

According to Slash, the first time they spoke was over the phone in March 2015.

Axls version of events is that Coachella put the feelers out on a headlining slot with the reunited band. It seemed a genuine offer so they made contact with Slash’s people.

My guess would be with no guitarists left and CD2 or whatever SOE was dead in the water the big bucks on the table for Coachella looked much more appealing. TB spoke with Slash’s management and a phone call was set up between the two in March whilst Slash was in South America with the Conspirators.

So I’d say Axl was game for a reunion a full 12 months prior to the Troubadour shows. Perhaps even longer as it seems it was he who sought the reconciliation.

I’ve also noticed Slash’s tone regarding new material seems to have warmed over the past few weeks. The most dismissive he seems to be in the interview he gave just prior to Download (RS?). More recent interviews that have been conducted and published post the summer tour he seems a lot more positve about the idea. Hopefully that’s following some sort of conversation or green light from Axl that new music is on the agenda.

Perhaps but then again Ron, who was his direct replacement, was never accused of standing around doing nothing. I'm sure half the time he was just playing some simple power chords on the old GNR material but at least he looked involved.

I'm not doubting BH's talents in any way I just disagree with the general mantra from BH fans that with the collapse of the 02 tour/album somehow he was robbed of the chance of becoming some sort of mainstream guitar icon. To the vast majority GNR was a joke bordering on tragic in 02, part of that was because of BH not in spite of him.

The notion that if only things had been handled differently there would have been stadiums full of people dancing along to his nunchuck demo and robot dance is just fantasy.

I remember a couple of years ago hearing a guy called Vernon Kay (UK tv and radio presenter) talking about GNR around the time the UK reunion shows were announced. He said he it was good the old band was back together blah blah. The interesting bit was he said that years ago he’d been covering the VMA’s and the day before he was in the venue and had watched Axl and new GNR rehearsing because they played the VMA’s the next day. He said it was all very surreal and weird.

Made me laugh how this guy probably has no idea that what he witnessed that day is such a big deal to a select few, who would pay big money just to watch a recording of what he saw.