Duff McKagan's Column In Seattle Weekly

[lynn1961]

Yeah, he doesn't even mention what would be the obvious..........

[Trist805]

Yeah, he doesn't even mention what would be the obvious..........

Velvet Revolver?   

I think that Myles Kennedy is the only hope for Velvet Revolver, right now.  The Slash tour and band with Myles and Todd Kerns has been so cool, and I think it is about equal to VR.    

I'm pretty sure that the Macy Gray with VR song was done before Duff got heavily involved in JA and before Slash was touring with his band?   I'd much take the latter.   I'm happy that they are all out doing their thing though.

[FunkyMonkey]

Wacky Seattle: The Solstice Parade and Lessons Learned in Our Socially Outward City

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Jun. 24 2010

This town of ours is really quite an independent and almost sovereign-seeming mini-gotham if you see it like I do. I reside in the Northwest but have spent the lion's share of my life traveling. I have also spent much of that time working out of Los Angeles. My point is, I get to witness Seattle and this region in fits and starts - always relishing my time here because it is often short.

When I come home, it is always with my wife and two daughters. It is always a thing for us to plan ahead activities that we try to do. My wife starts going on the computer weeks before our trips and always finds really cool stuff to do. Parades, rodeos, hikes, festivals, music events, horseback riding, camping trips, cooking classes, and whatever else. If we actually DID all of the things that she plans, however, the McKagan family would just be a blur of movement. Her 'activity eyes' are really big! She has a damn filing cabinet just for this stuff!

But her heart is huge and just wants us to enjoy and experience great things together...to have shared memories of a kick-ass life. In fact, the wife and I just got off the ol' Columbia River on a paddle boat...not a big Mississippi River-style paddle boat, no, the kind with the peddles. I guess its called a peddle boat? Sorry, I digress.

As we all know, it has been unseasonably rainy and cold in Seattle lately. The weather doesn't, however, seem to have any effect on summertime plans up here. Case in point: the Fremont Solstice Parade last Saturday. For those of you who want a real taste of liberal Seattle, then this is the event for you. This is the second time I have gone with my family. It really isn't the typical parade and only adheres to what we know as a parade in that there IS a parade 'route'.

The Solstice Parade always starts with a few hundred naked bike riders (of course!). The rest of the parade is a mish-mash of gay and lesbian drill teams, trash-bag drill teams, paraders dressed as trees wanting hugs, paraders dressed as pot leaves, and punk-rockish marching bands. A lot of it may appear completely random and it is. We saw a man and a women pushing their child in a bathtub with bike wheels. Now THAT was random! But the general mood and point of the parade is a sort of clean environment, be who you wanna be, legalize pot thing. There are tons of cops there - and there are also tons of people smoking weed and walking around naked. It's the one time that you can do anything you want (without violence) in front of the police without getting arrested I guess.

People are seriously socially-outward up in these parts too, which I completely dig and am wholly into. I am a talker and am naturally curious about others. Some would say that is mostly because I am from a big family and that all of my siblings and myself were forced by sheer numbers to have to socialize. I would argue further that it is because I am from Seattle that I have this attribute. In the last 6 days in Seattle, I have learned more from strangers on the street about themselves than I have learned about my very next-door neighbors in Los Angeles in the last 5 years.

I found out from a fella that gout is from eating too rich of foods and that black cherry juice will help the affliction.

I found out exactly when and in what weather to best fish for rainbow trout in the Alpine Lakes region of the north Cascades.

I learned where Mariner pitcher Ryan Rowland-Smith's parents live in Australia. And where HE lives in Seattle. (I sat next to his parents at a game on Friday. While yes, they are not from Seattle, they ARE from Australia, probably the friendliest place on earth next to Seattle. I told them not to tell anyone else where their son lives though!).

I discovered that a guy in Fremont went to jail for pot posession for 4 years. He told me he has never harmed a soul nor even sold weed.

I also found out that a guy wearing a suit of dirty plastic grocery bags, yelling "Don't use me! I can't recycle!" has more of a positive effect with my daughters, as far as the environment goes, than anything that they have thus far learned in school.

If you have nothing to do this Friday, check out 'Wine, Women, and Song' at the Palace Ballroom. It's a gig celebrating and featuring Seattle-area chicks that rock (Star Anna and Kim Virant anyone?), and Northwest women wine-makers. It is another great Deborah Heesch production (she has done both of the Patsy Cline things over the last year, AND the Hootenanny for Haiti at the Showbox). It is sure to be a class act.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/06/duff_mckagan_thursday_june_24.php

[FunkyMonkey]

When Your Daughter's Got the Bieber Bug, the Whole Family Gets Infected

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jul. 1 2010

I have a daughter, Grace, who turns 13 this summer. I have borne witness first-hand to the changing paradigm of how kids these days get turned on to new music, through everything from YouTube to the Disney Channel. Grace finds pretty hip stuff, and has turned me onto to bands like Phoenix, Le Roux, the xx, and many more. But she isn't immune to the really commercial pop stuff (neither am I, actually!).

Six years ago it was all about Britney Spears, until she got too "skanky," according to Grace. High School Musical was a huge deal for her, and I remember having to find a hotel in New York that had the Disney Channel so that we could see the world premiere of HSM 2 back when that came out. It would have been a huge blow to her if we hadn't gotten to see that on the premiere night.

The Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana have come and gone in her "what is cool" file, and now it is all about Justin Bieber. And this time it's different.

If you are not aware of Justin Bieber or the corresponding Bieber Fever that has been overtaking teenage girls over the past six months or so, then I guess perhaps you have been living under some kind of media-muted rock. This shit is huge. It must be like the Shaun Cassidy or Leif Garrett things that happened in the '70s. Just sheer screaming-girl mania.

The Bieber is playing Everett Events Center on July 13, and Grace is going crazy. I happen to be friends with Justin Bieber's tour manager. Grace stands a good chance of meeting him. She knows that his favorite songs on RockBand or Guitar Hero are Guns N' Roses songs. Grace is hoping and scheming to use these angles so that The Bieber will go down on one knee that night and ask her to marry him. She knows that his favorite eye color is blue (she has blue eyes). She knows that his favorite sport is hockey (she is, as I write, learning everything she can about hockey). She has already informed her mom and myself that we are not to plan anything for the two days leading up to the show, because she needs this time to get ready. Two whole days?! When I question her about what the hell could take two whole days, she gives me the look that solidifies the fact that we men don't know the first thing about our opposite gender. Not a damn thing . . .

There was a day when rock tours sold out arenas, and tours came through town all the time. It is rare these days for a bona fide rock band to do an arena tour here in the States. Green Day, Metallica, and the Foo Fighters can do it, but few others. No, the real arena acts these days are things like Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift, and The Bieber. I guess TV is the great difference-maker. MTV used to play music videos 24 hours a day, and these videos acted as commercials to whet the appetite for a ready youth market. These days, it's all about the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon and the product that they push.

My friend, Justin Bieber's tour manager, says that every arena is sold out and that they are averaging $27 per person on merchandise sold at those venues. These young kids tug on their parents' pant legs with hopeful eyes and get what they want. Trust me, I am one of those dads who will buy the tour program or shirt for their daughter. We parents are suckers for that kind of thing, for sure. Do the math here--20,000 people a night x $27. On top of what they are already making in ticket receipts. They are printing money over there. But that is off-topic.

No, I suppose the reason for writing this particular piece is really only to invite you all in as I take this journey. It's awfully damn sweet and cute and innocent. Heck, if nothing else, I scored some bonus "cool" points with Grace. Justin Bieber likes my old band. He can't be all THAT bad.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/07/when_your_daughters_got_the_bi.php

[CheapJon]

i love these, thanks for posting funky!

[FunkyMonkey]

I'm Gonna Need a New Roof: I Never Thought I'd See the Day.

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jul. 8 2010

Back in the fall of 1993, I had serious thoughts that there were not going to be many more springs and summers and winters ahead for me. My two-and-a-half year run in support of Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion had come to an end, and I found myself with a caustic and deadly addiction to drugs and alcohol. I was lonely, tired, and never ate.

I had also finally bought a house back in Seattle. It had a basketball court and an old, leaky roof. I never thought I'd use the basketball court. And I remember thinking that the cedar shake roof that I put on the house--rated to last 25 years--would outlast me.

Today it's looking old and somewhat worse for the wear. I guess I do too. I take not a small amount of solace in the fact that I figured out a way to outrun the life expectancy of my roof. To hell with how I look from the outside. I am giddy just to be here.

It's when the seasons change, as they did this week, that I feel dead lucky. I am in Seattle with my family right now, and on one of our recent 85-degree July days, playing basketball in our backyard with my soon-to-be 10 year-old, it suddenly dawned on me that THESE are the good old days. Right now. Right here.

So often I find myself rushing through a day trying to get this done or that. When a friend in London and I were discussing the details of business and family and time away from home, he e-mailed me a reminder: "THIS IS NOT A REHEARSAL!" It's easy to forget.

It happens in a flash, life does. It seems like just yesterday that my 13-year-old daughter, Grace, was born. Only the ever-deepening lines on my face tell me that I have been alive for a while. I don't FEEL any different. I still have geeky and adolescent thoughts. I still tell the same dumb jokes. Didn't I JUST paint my house? That was 10 years ago?! It can't be.

There's no question that life is treating me well, inside and outside my house. I got to fly down to L.A. last weekend and take part in one of the most fun gigs I have EVER played. Jane's Addiction played a show to be included in Donovan Leitch's film about Hollywood and the Sunset Strip. The band is allowing me to be a part of their history, and for that, I am deeply honored. Life is good indeed.

But contrast in life is needed for balance. If it were all gumdrops and pink girly-stuff in my life, I am quite sure that I would go fucking insane. I love my girls and my household, don't get me wrong, I just need pain and darkness now and again to even the teeter-totter. I like to write rock songs about the "other side"--often laced with profane utterances ("Los Angeles/You're a fucking whore/Hollywood/You're an open sore")--all the while trying not to use "bad words" in my own house. I like exercise with pain and some suffering involved. I like old-school punk rock. I like Slipknot and The Refused, too.

Contrast in my life is also apparent in the oldest friends that I have. My longest/best friend, Andy, has always called my bullshit and often scratched his head at my chosen path in life. Andy's catchphrase to me seems to be, "What you doing THAT for?!"

From the time I moved to L.A. back in 1984, to my changing Grace's diaper too slowly, he has always challenged me to clarify and sharpen my goals and intents. We have been hanging out this week a bunch, and thus I have had to explain to him what I have been up to over the last year or so. Andy lets me know that life is indeed not ALL about me. He didn't know about me and Jane's Addiction. Of course, I thought EVERYONE knew about it!

Andy reminds me that most other people do have a life of their own that doesn't center on me. He doesn't read this column. He doesn't go to music websites to troll. He's a normal guy. Because I have always kept my best friends from childhood--men whose professions differ greatly from mine and who thus have perspective (as I hope I provide in return)--I am a normal guy . . . or at least I STRIVE to be a normal guy.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/07/duff_mckagan_july_8.php

[FunkyMonkey]

Four Things I've Learned After 99 Columns (And Yes, I'll Tell You All About the Justin Bieber Show!)

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jul. 15 2010

It is probably a bit self-important of me even to recognize that this week marks my 100th Thursday column for Seattle Weekly. It is sort of par for the course that I can't really think of what to write this week--writer's block, I suppose. Or is it that I am putting too much pressure on myself and therefore can't feel a flow?

At any rate, here are four things I have learned thus far from my writings, and from you readers:

1. Writing is a journey into honesty, more so than the spoken word. Once you make a written statement, you must follow it up with supporting text. For me, at least, this has helped me to clarify some things in my life currently AND in the past.

2. I have been really lucky with the quality of this column's readership. You lot are, for the most part, much more smarterer than me, and have challenged me with witty and thought-provoking comments. I love the back-and-forth. Intellectual discourse for me is for sure a major spice in life.

3. Heck, when I started this column two years ago, I never would have thought that it would last this long. I have found in writing a new passion. I probably would never have had the "chops" to get a gig at some old-school newspaper back then. The Weekly has allowed me to learn as I go. I guess blogging IS the new op/ed.

4. Now that the Internet is the "newspaper" of this generation, I believe we have a responsibility to be as truthful and fact-based as we can. Putting bullshit stories or op/eds out there is pass? and rather dumb at this point, and gets old. Does this make sense? Let's step it up!

OK. So enough of all that! Let's move on to a topic I wrote about a couple of weeks ago--Justin Bieber! The concert was Tuesday night here in Everett (just outside Seattle), and I took four screaming tweeners. Awesome.

Actually, for those of you who may scoff at the idea of a pop teen idol (and I am usually at the top of that list), Justin Bieber is actually . . . the real deal. I have been to more than a few of these teenage arena concerts. I won't name names, but for the most part they are lip-synch affairs. As a musician, it bums me out. When I go to a concert, I don't want to listen to tape, and I don't think my kids do either. At that point, you feel like you were just brought to the arena to buy a T-shirt and pay a bunch of dough for parking and bottled water.

Justin Bieber is a whole other animal. Firstly, he writes his own songs. Also, he plays guitar live, and his band is pretty damn slammin'. There was no lip-synching, either. I would go as far as to say that if you like old Jackson 5, then you may be an eventual recipient of Bieber Fever yourself. I'm just sayin' . . . If nothing else, it was a good time that harkened back to '70s pop.

My daughters, Grace and Mae, brought two friends, and because of my ties with the touring personnel, I was the parent chosen to take them all. It is quite possible that I was the only male in that whole crowd of 8,588 people (a record for Everett's Comcast Arena). I was a dude alone in a sea of estrogenic zeal. It kind of freaked me the fuck out. There were moms drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade and dancing and waving their hands at 16-year-old Justin, almost knocking over their own kids to be seen (I guess?). Pretty funny (and odd) moments for sure. Cougar much?

I have seen--and may I say, even been a part of--some pretty rabid audiences, but there really is nothing that quite compares to thousands of screaming and crying girls. The noise level between songs is the loudest and most hysterical thing I have ever been a witness to . . . and I have PLAYED shows in front of 100,000-plus drunken rock fans who LIVE for rock and roll.

I was chided quite a bit this week by friends and family who knew that I was going to the Bieber show. One of my friends went as far as to say that I had finally sold my soul to the devil for going. This show wasn't about me being a "rock guy," it was about me simply being a dad.

But finally the opportunity came Tuesday for my girls to actually meet JB. When my friend who works on the tour came to us before the show and waved us through to a backstage room, it became apparent that it was time for us to meet "the dude."

My girls played it cool and didn't freak out. I was proud of that. Afterward, however, they were floating on clouds. Bieber wanted his photo taken with me too, and for that I won tons of points with my girls. Grace asked me today if I had talked to JB today yet. She thinks that because we did a photo together that maybe we will be friends now. Heck, now that I think of it, maybe Slash and I can finally announce the new singer of Velvet Revolver--Justin Bieber!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/07/four_things_ive_learned_after.php

[Lady Ashba]

OMG this one has to be one of the best columns ever! Justin Bieber as the new VR singer?? Please Slash, tell Duff NO WAY!!

[Naupis]

OMG this one has to be one of the best columns ever! Justin Bieber as the new VR singer?? Please Slash, tell Duff NO WAY!!

Duff is late to the game, Slash has already been infected with Bieber fever. 

Slash had an indecent proposal for pop sensation Justin Bieber when the pair met in Sydney, Australia this weekend - he invited the 16 year old to a strip club. The former Guns N' Roses rocker jetted Down Under to launch a new MTV music channel and his trip coincided with a visit from the "Baby" hitmaker, who was forced to scrap a show in Sydney on Monday, April 26 after chaos broke out among fans.

The pair met over the weekend and Bieber suggested they head out for dinner - but Slash had other plans for a meeting with the teenager. He explains, "I told him, I said maybe me and the Mrs will take you to a strip bar. But that didn't happen 'cause his minder told me that he's got a curfew and he's with his mum."

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/w0002629.html

[Lady Ashba]

Ohhhhh my this is worse than I thought

[jak0lantern01]

How funny would it be for these guys to do a one-off tune with Bieber? Like, heavier than anything........

[CheapJon]

How funny would it be for these guys to do a one-off tune with Bieber? Like, heavier than anything........

not at all

[FunkyMonkey]

I Have Officially Bowed to the Information Age

Duff McKagan, Thu., Jul. 22 2010

​Last Christmas, my wife bought me a Kindle. To be honest, I had to sort of fake that I was stoked to get this present. As most of you probably know by now, I am an old-school, turn-the-paper-pages kind of guy. What was I to do with this new gadget? My wife would surely be checking to see if I was indeed using the Kindle, and I was totally reluctant at first. A happy life = a happy wife, and so sometime a few weeks after Christmas, I acquiesced and bought my first e-book. I haven't looked back since.

I can appreciate how hard authors must surely work on their craft. I have never illegally downloaded music and ALWAYS buy what I listen to. I probably take this credo a little far with e-books. Authors DO make less on this new medium, so I also buy the physical book as a companion. I like to put those books on my bookshelf anyway ...

A few days ago, I read in a news story that e-books just surpassed, in sales, their physical counterparts on Amazon. Is this the beginning of the end for paper books? Have I somehow contributed? Does anyone care?

I've been reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts on Kindle. It is a massive read, somewhere around 1,000 pages. The odd thing about reading a book on a Kindle for me is that there are no page numbers. Shantaram is an epic story that goes through many varied stages. Not knowing where you are in a book can be a bit confusing. I've read a couple of Upton Sinclair books on Kindle, and with his abrupt endings, I thought I was missing part of the book--as if it actually hadn't all transferred to my gadget. I've been reading Shantaram for like five weeks and I have no fucking idea how much of the story is left. I guess this can be good and bad. Because I don't know where I am in the story, I am rather lost in it, and without the burden and restraint of anticipating the end. But because I don't know how much further to go, I'm not sure how much weight to put into certain offshoots in the story. Does that make sense?

Prince recently said that the Internet was "pass?" and in its death throes. I love me some Prince and would never doubt anything that he pronounces, but . . . actually, I wouldn't mind if somehow that would be true. Record stores would thrive again, and maybe all those bloated, fat-Elvis stage pictures and YouTube videos of me would be gone(ish). What if suddenly it all went away or just became uncool? What would be next? I'm not exactly sure if Prince offered anything in the way of a new direction after his revelation last week. But of course this talk of the Internet vanishing is foolish.

Last week I touched on the topic of electronic media, and what I said sort of meshes nicely with Kindle et al. Online and downloadable news sites and newspapers have done in more than a few substantial brick-and-mortar newspapers. Perhaps that is the natural evolution of these things. I like the fact that people can comment instantly to articles and op/eds like mine. I think blog writers in general are taken more seriously this year than they were last year and the year before. The writing is just better. The sites are getting better, too. The intellectual level of commentary to my column alone over the last two years has risen considerably--probably because the "fleetish-ness" of online media as a whole has subsided. I guess people get sick of just blurting out dumb things online, and switch to real discourse after awhile. Or is it that people have just stopped reacting to childish Internet stabs? I for one rather like how we have all risen in the face of this complexity.

I am proof, then, that an old dog can change. I lug my Kindle through airports along with my computer and iPod. I may buy a paper once in a while, but mostly refer to my Wall Street Journal text alerts for the main and to-the-minute stories of the day. Yeah, I will always maintain a library and see live music and go to the movies, but I have become a man of this Information Age, for sure.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/07/i_have_officially_bowed_to_the.php

[FunkyMonkey]

Racism, Reality, and "One in a Million"

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jul. 29 2010

My wife and I were having lunch at an outdoor cafe in Wenatchee about a month ago, when a dude in his late 20s recognized me from my Guns N' Roses days. He stopped to talk to us, excited to tell us about what he'd been listening to and what concerts he had lined up for the summer. It all seemed nice and innocent, until he started to tell us about his girlfriend and how she had just recently gotten into rock 'n' roll. She used to be into hip-hop, she said. Her former boyfriends were Mexicans. But now she's into rock, because, "you know, white is right!" My wife and I both sat speechless in stunned silence.

This was the most recent of more instances than I'd care to remember when I have been assumed to harbor racist sentiments in my life.

I used to think it was because of the GN'R song "One in a Million" and its use of a few choice racist words. That song was meant, to the best of my knowledge, as a third-person slant on how fucked-up America was in the '80s. I don't know. I wouldn't have used the words, but Axl has been known to be amazingly bold at times.

I think for a while there in the late '80s and early '90s, GN'R were looked at as all kinds of bad things, even racists. I remember hearing that the KKK, or some faction of the Klan, had even used that song as a war cry. Art gets misunderstood all the time, but try to imagine being on MY end of this misunderstanding. Me, the little brother of a sister with a black husband whom I looked up to. What about Slash and what HE must have gone through then (Slash is half-black--or is it half-white?).

Starting long before anyone had ever heard of Guns N' Roses, and well before I picked up my first bass guitar, periods of racial tension have cropped up in virtually every stage of my life.

I grew up in a time when the civil rights movement here in the U.S. was at its most embroiled and tragic. Early memories for me include my mom pulling me out of kindergarten to march in a peace rally after Martin Luther King was shot and killed (the line "Did you wear the black armband/When they shot the man/Who said 'peace could last forever'" from GN'R's 'Civil War" was taken from this experience).

My oldest brother-in-law, Dexter, was a black man with a Black Panther tattoo on his left forearm. ANY tattoo to a 5-year-old boy is just the coolest thing ever, period. I didn't know that the Black Panthers were a militant group, nor would I have even understood it. Dexter was just my really cool brother with a kick-ass tattoo! I was too young to make a distinction between black skin and white skin. There was a white kid down the street who was born with an albino skin pigmentation--his skin was both really white and tan. My first two nieces and nephews were both half-black . . . or is it half-white? I dunno, but they were only one and two years younger than me. Our neighbors across the street were brown-skinned Filipinos. As a result, I just thought that we humans just simply came in ALL colors. Nothing more. Nothing less. Turns out that I was right all the way back then.

The year that I started kindergarten was also the year that Seattle Public Schools started the busing/integration program. I don't think we kids, black or white, really knew what was happening. The tensions of certain kids' parents about this situation came out in those few kids in the way of racism (from both colors), but these were mostly isolated in my experience.

The middle school I attended was a rather rough place when I went there in the late '70s. I got into my very fair share of trouble there, and had made the dumb decision to start carrying a knife to school. There were bullies of ALL races there. One day, two of these bullies followed me into the bathroom and demanded money from me. When I produced my knife, they ran and told a counselor that I had made racist threats. I am white and they were black. It was pure bullshit, but I became a scapegoat and was expelled. I was horrified of what my family thought about what may have been the real truth. I know that they knew I was no racist, though, and that this situation was purely a product of the times; and I am sure these two bullies were snickering about my dilemma for the rest of the year. Were they assholes because of the color of their skin? No. They were just assholes.

The fallout two weeks ago from USDA official Shirley Sherrod getting the axe has some very depressing repercussions for this country, I am afraid. Racism has reared its ugly head in a new way that I can't imagine anyone really could have seen in retrospect. It appears that certain conservative affiliates are doing what they can to run black-on-white smear campaigns. It also appears that the Obama administration pulled the knee-jerk reaction of the century to set things back on track. They are afraid. The conservatives are apparently afraid too. It is appalling to witness just a couple short years after this country made one of its best collective decisions ever in electing Obama.

Are we taking steps backwards? I sure hope not. I have hopes that maybe WE are the generation that will be perhaps the last to witness this type of BS in America. It is just fear--and it is a fear that is just boring at this point. C'mon now. Let's move the fuck ON!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/07/racism_reality_and_one_in_a_mi.php

[FunkyMonkey]

The Summer's Last Great Vacation

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Aug. 5 2010

In my line of work, it is either feast or famine, it seems. Either I have too much going the hell on, or scant little. No matter which, not since my early 20s have I had a 9-to-5 job with clear-cut free weekends and two weeks of paid vacation.

With kids in school now, I am very cognizant of when I have time off from touring, writing songs, or making records. It always happens that MY downtime is when THEY are in damn school! When summertime rolls around--almost without fail--my work schedule just gets fucking slammed. A joke around my house is "Your kids' schooling gets in the way of MY vacation!" I would never dream of doing a solo one. I'd rather stick by and just kind of wait for the girls to come home from school every day. I try to act all cool and nonchalant, but truth be told, I dig being around and with my family all the time. Not very rock-and-roll, some may say? Yeah, well . . . whatever!

I have been going to eastern Washington in the summer ever since I was a kid. My wife Susan and I bought a little piece of property over there in the late '90s. Ever since our girls have been alive, I have tried every ploy to get them as excited about that high desert locale as I am. I have failed miserably, for the most part . . . until this last weekend, it seems.

In the little neighborhood that our property is in the middle of, we have become friends with the other families and their kids. In a situation like ours, when we are not around a whole ton, it can be awkward for preteens to sort of mesh and become good buddies. My daughters are very nice girls, but kids this age are just shy, I guess.

This past weekend, though, as I scurried back from L.A. and quickly loaded the truck to get my family over to eastern Washington for our last time all together for a while, my daughters asked if they could bring a couple of their Seattle girlfriends with us. These arrangements always seem to be better. When the girls have friends along, my wife Susan and I get less flak about not having enough activities laid out (kids get REALLY bored REALLY quick!). Perhaps, I quietly thought to myself, the buffer of having their friends with them would help my girls be bolder with our neighbors' kids over there. Does that make any sense?

On Saturday, our first night there, we were invited by our neighbors to go see some car racing at our local racetrack. They do kick-ass stuff up there, like chain up boats and trailers to the back of crash-derby cars and make them run in figure-eights until there is only one car and, uh, boat left (Yep, that's how we do it over in the 509!). Car races aside, a funny thing happened up there at that race . . . and all at once. BOYS! Oh, shit . . . here we go.

I don't want to embarrass anyone here in the writing of this column, especially my older daughter (she is almost 13). Suffice it to say that, at about this exact age, the opposite gender has suddenly gained some merit. I actually don't mind it at all. I like having little dudes around to talk sports and other muddy things with. I am sure this won't last long--the me-liking-it part--but I will take it for now.

On Sunday, Susan wanted to learn to ride a dirt bike, and so again our neighbors came to our aid. Sunday just happens to be the day a local orchardist opens up a part of his acreage to all the locals to ride their dirt bikes. As you might imagine, most of these riders are boys. Did someone say "boys"?! Suddenly my daughters and their two friends were VERY interested in tagging along with us to the track to, uh . . . watch Mom.

It suddenly dawned on me that maybe I was getting what I wished for. Those childhood trips to Sun Lakes east of the mountains contained a lot of my first experiences with having a momentary crush on some girl from Yakima who was also there with her parents. It's all so very innocent and sweet at this point. I have made the decision to sort of sit back and let it all happen. Well, except for writing this column about it.

As we drove back Monday over the mountain pass, we all talked excitedly about what our favorite things about our quick vacation were. We all seemed to agree that there was not a bad part. The candy at the racetrack was great, the jet-ski rides were awesome, the water temperature was warm....and the company was perfect.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/08/the_summers_last_great_vacatio.php

[Albert S Miller]

Good o'l Sun Lakes, I myself have spent plenty of my childhood in Eastern Wa, it is so just a part of being a Washingtonian, leaving all the beautiful greenery for the dry desert, and the hot, hot sunshine, camping and all else... and for discovering boys when you are almost 13, brings back some of my own fond childhood memories.  Thanks Duff, great article this week!!

[FunkyMonkey]

Letters From Belltown, Which Could Be the City's Crown Jewel of a Neighborhood

Aug. 12 2010

By Duff McKagan

Rather than go long on a single issue this week, I thought I'd relay several observations that I've been able to make about the Belltown area of Seattle while I've been down here making a record this week at Studio X.

There is a little market across the street from the studio that has the usual fare--Red Bull, chips, string cheese, crack pipes (sorry, glass tobacco pipes), and an assortment of baseball hats and beanies. I guess these are the items that sell the best here in America. Every corner market in every major city in the States seems to carry the same stuff.

But the baseball hats at this store gave me pause. I like humor, especially when something is not supposed to be funny. The slogans on a couple of the dustier, long-hanging hats instantly explained why they had yet to sell. One hat had a graphic of a crafty king's jester with an evil smile. The slogan above the graphic read "JOCKER'S WILD." Heh, heh. The other hat showed a graphic of the U.S. Presidents on Rushmore. Above this, it simply read "MOUNTAIN RUSHMORE."

My new friend who runs this store, a fellow whose first language is not English, bemoaned the fact that these hats were made in China and that "they can't spell English down there." I thought to myself that perhaps he was missing some of the humor. Someone from his store had indeed displayed these hats to sell. Besides the fact that, yes, a lot of our disposable goods are imported from China, I'm just glad that I live in a place where I can banter with an Ethiopian gentleman about a Chinese-made product and openly complain about our government.

The U.S. is a melting pot, and I hope that it remains this way. Immigrants built this country on grit and determination for a better life. I COULD do with more U.S.-made products and/or less outsourcing to other countries, though. I'm more than sick of hearing about another car or plane plant closing because of cheaper labor and other costs abroad. Maybe my new slogan to reflect my insights should be "MORE IMMIGRANTS, LESS IMPORTS."

Because I have been down in Belltown recording every night until midnight, I have been privy to the crap that goes on here at night. It is a fucking crime free-for-all. I love this city, and it bums me out to see crack deals and threats of violence in our urban center. I like a city with some edge, don't get me wrong, but this is plain ugly and scary. For 10 nights straight, I have not seen one police car or cop presence at all. I'd rather walk anywhere in Boston or New York at night than have to circumnavigate Belltown these days. Hey, Mayor McGinn? What's the deal?

Belltown could be THE crown-jewel urban Seattle neighborhood. It is far from that right now, from what I have seen. I know there have been recent meetings with Belltown neighborhood groups, but I don't think extending weekend police activity alone will do much to stave off the day-in, day-out bullshit that I have witnessed this past week.

Lastly . . . the Seattle Mariners. Will someone please fire president Chuck Armstrong and CEO Howard Lincoln. They are not apt to fire themselves, and Seattle baseball fans deserve so much more than the very less-than-average Major League team that we have now. There is no tradition of winning, and I am afraid that it can't start while these two fellows are running the show.

Back to the studio.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/08/letters_from_belltown_which_co.php

[FunkyMonkey]

The quote in bold at the end of his column is interesting...


We Changed, Anvil Didn't, and That's Pretty Badass

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Aug. 19 2010

It's not that I grew up with Anvil or saw them at all in the '80s when they were tearing it up back in the day. No, as a matter of fact they were not really on my radar at ALL until I saw their movie at the premiere in Los Angeles last year. It was the movie that struck a chord with me. The struggle and ebb and flow of a working rock band gets me every time.

The documentary shows the friendship of Anvil's two original members (drummer Rob Reiner and singer/lead guitarist Lips) more than anything. These two guys have been through so much crap and somehow remained the best of friends. They have not changed one thing about themselves over the last 30 years, probably to the detriment of any real success.

Shit. Think about THAT for a second. It is really quite bold to just sort of believe SO much in what you do that you don't change one damn thing over a course of a long, long musical career. A guy like myself will indeed believe in certain precedents in music (like a punk-rock ethic for instance), but I have also changed how my music is written and recorded and how I look and all. I wonder--if I had had some sort of success with the Fartz back in 1981, would Paul Solger and I have just remained punker dudes and just kept writing songs about how "this world stinks"?

Back in the '80s, when bands like Megadeth and Anthrax and Testament started to garner bigger and bigger success, Anvil got left somewhere in the dust of it all. Their songs were maybe not as good, and probably the production of their records dated them too much. But maybe now, in retrospect, that is what I like about this band so much: they just didn't seem to give a fuck. Or was it that they just didn't get the memo that trends were changing? Either way, it's kinda badass now.

When I saw this movie with my band Loaded at that premiere, I think it instilled in all of us some of the fortitude that got us through all the ups and downs of the long and arduous touring schedule we went on. Indeed, seeing what these guys in Anvil have suffered through made me think of the stupid stuff that we in Guns N' Roses and even Velvet Revolver let get in the way of the music. The kind of stuff the guys in Anvil would have fought and stayed together through.

If you are going to Bumbershoot, do yourself a big favor. Go and rent Anvil! The Story of Anvil first. I guarantee that you will fall for this band and root for them. If you are a Capitol Hill hipster or a Lynnwood mom, it really will not matter. You will have your fist in the air, and perhaps feel a drop or two of tears. Celebrate good humans. Celebrate Anvil!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/08/we_changed_anvil_didnt_and_tha.php

[FunkyMonkey]

My Dirty Laundry, As Aired By My Daughter, Grace

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Aug. 26 2010

Of the more than 100 columns I've written thus far for Seattle Weekly, I would say that probably a good quarter have been centered around my life as a family man. The "family" pieces are the ones that might be the most widely read.

A couple of months back, I wrote a column about the whole "Bieber Fever" thing, and I used my own daughter as a sort of example within the piece. Until then, my daughter Grace had never really read my column, but she was made aware of that particular piece because it seemed that everywhere she and I went in Seattle just after that, people would come up to us and say something like "Duff and Grace! Bieber Fever!!!" Grace was not pleased with me . . .

And then, just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote another column that touched on the topic of "boys." It is very safe to say that again Grace was not pleased with me . . . Yes, she reads my column now.

The other morning, Grace ca.m.e to me with an already written column . . . a sort of response, I suppose. I back it. So without further ado, here are my daughter Grace McKagan's first ever e-published words--a sort of "Oh yeah, Dad? Take THIS!"

DAD'S DAILY ROUTINE:

7:00 a.m.: Wake Up & Talk REALLLLLLLY Loudly on the Phone with Jeff Rouse About Coffee
8:00 a.m.: Drink Coffee & Watch the News REALLLLLLLY Loudly
9:00 a.m.: Go to the Gym (EWWWWWW)
12:00 p.m.: Eat DISGUSTING Tuna Curry Coffee Bean Protein Shake
12:30 p.m.: Go to the Studio & Record
1:00 p.m.: Coffee
2:00 p.m.: Coffee
3:00 p.m.: Coffee
4:00 p.m.: Coffee
5:00 p.m.: Coffee
6:00 p.m.: Coffee
7:00 p.m.: Coffee
8:00 p.m.: Coffee
9:00 p.m.: Coffee
10:00 p.m.: Coffee
11:00 p.m.: Come Back Home From the Studio

DAD'S BFF's:

(Not in Any Particular Order)
Jeff Rouse
Isaac
Mike Squires
John Potatoes (Varvatos)
Sean Kinny
Tavis LeMay
Scotty P.
Matt McKagan
LuAnn Finklstein
PatrowTrow
Cupcake 123 (Buckly)
Gilby Clarke

DAD'S EMBARRISING STUFF:

He Buys Colone From SEPHORAAAAAAA (The Gucci One)
He Eats Chocolate Like Every Night
He Always Says "age" After Everything
I.E.: Cool "songage," "manage"
He Takes His Shirt Off ALL THE FLIPPING TIIIIME When it is Hot Outside
He Gets His Hair Colored (He is a 46 Year Old "MUCHOOO" Dad)
He is OBSESSED With his BlackBerry

SO UHMMM YEAH PEACE OUT GANGSTAHHHHS THANKS FOR READING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/08/my_dirty_laundry_as_aired_by_m.php

[MeanBone]

Grace rocks! i laughed so hard reading this.

i find that duff's column is the best read i can get at htgth. it's always so cool!

Duff couldn't get any cooler