Print Page - Duff McKagan's Column In Seattle Weekly

Duff McKagan, formerly of Guns N' Roses, plays bass in Velvet Revolver. His column appears every Thursday on Reverb.

Duff McKagan: Faith in Rock

Posted Aug. 20 at 11:20 pm by Duff McKagan

A few months back, Velvet Revolver had an opportunity to play a rock show in Dubai as a predecessor to a European tour. Before the gig was booked, I heard all the usual warning hoo-hah that we in the U.S. hear about an ?Arab? or ?Muslim? country?most notably that Americans are reviled and I should ?watch my ass and say that I am Swedish, if asked.? Well, this was my first foray into an Arab or Muslim country post-9/11. Maybe things had changed since I?d toured there in the early ?90?s.

The thing that really got my attention first, however, was an e-mail I received from our tour manager before we left: NO MARIJUANA, NO COCAINE, NO PRESCRIPTION CODEINE, NO PRESCRIPTION VALIUM OR XANAX: ONE YEAR IN JAIL THEN DEPORTATION. Wow, OK. I?ve been clean and sober for a long time but my mind still thinks of an out, like ?How ?bout deporting me first?!? Of course, the next line in the e-mail reminded me of a much larger problem: NO ISRAELI PASSPORTS OR ISRAELI STAMPS IN YOUR PASSPORT: INSTANT DEPORTATION. Really? Is that shit for real?? C?mon people now, smile on your brother?oh yeah, fuck that, it?s a new millennium (read Thomas Friedman?s Longitudes and Attitudes to really bum yourself out on this particular subject).

I have always tried to let my faith in humankind guide me when it comes time for decisions and options in life. Sure, I?ve been screwed a few times because of it, but more often than not this guidance system has strengthened my belief that mostly everyone is born with a ton of good in them, and that it?s not until much later that things like greed and power dilute members of our species into an almost unrecognizable mask of darkness and rage. I am not going to say ?no? to playing Dubai or anywhere else because of political or religious beliefs, etc. I believe I can actually do more good by seeing what?s indeed happening than by just sitting back here in the good old U.S.A., safe, protected, and spoon-fed hogwash on the nightly news. Fuck that! I?m going?

Continue reading "Duff McKagan: Faith in Rock": http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2008/08/faith_in_rock.php#more

What's Up With U.S.? I Need YOU!

Posted yesterday at 8:53 pm by Duff McKagan

In September of ?04, I had just finished up a stint as a student at the most excellent Seattle University and found myself headed to Europe to do a two-week press tour for the first Velvet Revolver record. On a press tour, you usually have a pretty tight schedule of print, radio, and TV interviews about?as was my case?your latest musical project. What was almost universally different this time, however, was the fact that I was being asked one extra question at every interview: ?Do you think Kerry will beat Bush in the upcoming election??

There seemed to be an almost all-enveloping fear in Europe that September that Bush would indeed get another four years. The thought was that perhaps Kerry may have the peaceful solution and that the Iraq occupation, er. . . War would see some near-future end with him in office. Our bellicose administration seemed to be taking its collective toll on the well-being of the everyday European, and I was now being put in the hot seat.

It seemed that I had somehow gained a new reputation in my ?rock world? as someone who could perhaps speak for many. I am not sure why this came to be. Maybe it was because I could now put together a couple of complete sentences without slobbering on myself (I put away my gallon-of-vodka-per-day habit back in ?94). Whatever the case, I had, like every American, thought a lot about this topic as November 4 fast approached. I had a great answer for these people, so I spewed forth my rhetoric for the following two weeks, which went something like this: ?I have just finished going to school with some of the smartest kids in America. No way do I think that these intelligent youth are going to idly sit back and allow Bush to succeed. These kids are ACTIVE in seeing a new leader step up and get things straightened out. Damn straight?Bush is going down, HE?S GOIN? DOWN!? Well, shit, didn?t I look like a damn fool a few short weeks hence?

I?ve realized since then that the kids I went to school with at Seattle University were indeed very smart, but they didn?t represent America, they represented Seattle! A big difference.

OK, flash forward to now. I will again be going to Europe this September, and I was curious if you, the Seattle Weekly reader, had a question for me to ask not only writers over there, but also the common workaday Europeans walking down the street? What are their hopes for a U.S. presidential candidate? Are we beyond repair? etc. I would like a consensus question from you readers that I can ask them this time. While there, I will report on this blog and let you all know how it is going. This could be a really cool way of creating an informative dialogue, if nothing else. And I promise to (try) not to color the response too much with my own personal and political viewpoints and jadedness.

Continue reading at: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2008/08/whats_up_with_us_i.php

Don't Call Me a Rock Star

Posted yesterday at 11:20 pm by Duff McKagan

I read John Roderick?s article ?Sex, Rock, and Reality? a couple weeks ago regarding the rock myths and lore that he so astutely dispelled. I?d like to take this opportunity to go one step further and discourse on my utter contempt for the much over-used term ?rock star?. You may be now saying to yourself ?yeah right, the dude from Guns N? Roses has a beef with a term that probably spells him out to a T?? Let me tell you something, I cringe at this term whenever it is directed anywhere near me and here is why?

I was fortunate enough in my teens to see the Clash on their first U.S. theater tour. This was before the major recognition they received on the London Calling record, but they were still larger than life to me and truly exotic. If the term ?rock star? could have been used at any time in my youth-driven lingo, it would have been then and it would have described the true awe that I felt of being in the same room as these erstwhile trend setters.

About 200 people showed up at the Paramount in Seattle to see this gig and it was, simply put, mind-blowing. During the show, a big yellow-shirted security guy up front punched a fan and broke his nose. Blood was everywhere. The Clash stopped the show. Bassist Paul Simonen appeared from the wings of stage right wielding a firefighter?s axe that he must have plucked from the wall. He jumped down in the pit and proceeded to chop down the wooden barrier separating the fans from the band while guitarist Joe Strummer dressed down the security gorilla and went on further to say that there was no difference between the fans and the bands?"we are all in this together! There is no such thing as a Rock Star, just musicians and listeners!" That moment remains static in my mind to this day.

Now, when I was even younger, growing up here in Seattle, I was deeply enchanted and mesmerized by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. I do ?get? why the term is used and was myself easily smitten by ?rock stars?- but I was under the age of 12 when these people appeared as gods in my classroom daydreams.

Let us look at the term ?rock star? in our current-day common vernacular. I think it was definitely used as noun up until sometime in the mid-90?s. Then, for some inexplicable reason, ?rock star? became a much over-used adjective. ?Hey, he sure does have on some rock-star clothing?. Or, when it is used as a noun, it has become bland and quite ?vanilla? as in ?party like a rock star? (I once asked a mountain biker friend what he actually meant when he said that he had ?partied like a rock star? the night before, ?well, I drank like a six-pack of beer!?). Or, in a popular pop song a couple of years ago ?hey now, you?re a rock star, get your game on??----please!

I also have a strong dislike for the term because I do actually know some people in ?the biz? that I have even worked with (no hints) who do refer to THEMSELVES as rock stars. It is my experience that a low self-esteem and need for skin-deep recognition perhaps spur these unfortunate few forward into actually thinking that they are indeed "rock n? roll stars". It is my further experience that these people think that they indeed are BETTER than you and me and their fans, not unlike the popular cliques that we all had to deal with in junior high-school. I, for one, find that kind of behavior pretty damn shallow and frankly embarrassing to be around. Furthermore, I have had the distinct honor of meeting some of my boyhood idol?s over the last 15 or so years and have been pleasantly surprised at the regularness of these older rock musicians. I guess the assholes get weeded out and longevity only happens to those musicians who see themselves as ones who simply serve the music?.I like that a LOT.

Read the rest at: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2008/09/rock_star.php#more

Alice In Chains: I Back These Guys

Posted yesterday at 9:30 pm by Duff McKagan

A couple years ago I received a call from Jerry Cantrell to see if I would be interested in playing rhythm guitar for the revamping Alice in Chains. I had become very good friends with all the guys in the band since they came to Hollywood in 1989 for their first gig in L.A. I knew first-hand of the utter heartbreak these men had gone through (and continue to feel) at the tragic loss of their singer and brother, Layne Staley. If I can do anything, I thought to myself, I can at least show my support for these guys who had become close friends not only to me but to my family. I jumped at the chance to play with them.

I don?t believe these guys ever thought of actually replacing Layne. How could they, really? Their thought process ran more to adding a member who could play second-guitar parts and/or sing some songs, either in tandem with Jerry or on his own. They found the guy in William Duvall. William struck me as a guy who was trying to be no one other than himself, and he oozed an air of ?cool? that, frankly, one either has or doesn?t have. The band was in a stage of self-doubt regarding the perception that their longtime fans would have of them going forward after the passing of Layne. For me, the choice was clear: These guys had to move on and they had way too much to offer the rock-and-roll world. Yes, in this day and age of paint-by-numbers formula corporate rock?we fuckin? NEED Alice in Chains!

My opinion may not be a popular one, especially here in Seattle. There seems to be an attitude of ?Who the hell do you guys think you are? You can?t go on without Layne!? While his death was heartbreakingly sad and needless, does this mean we all must shut the door on this band that changed the landscape of modern rock? Does this mean we all must suffer the elephant-sized monkey that rode Layne straight to his tragic end? Shit, did anybody think that Layne himself could very well have wanted his brothers to carry on? I for one believe that he in fact did. Alas, in the end, this is a can of worms that I should shut at this point because speculation on what he may or may not have wanted to happen after his death is pointless.

So now back to me playing guitar with these guys. I dove headfirst into a crash course of the whole AIC catalogue. My critical peek inside these songs, riff by riff, opened my eyes to what truly amazing song craftsmanship went into all of them. I began to feel truly honored to be included and connected in any way to this lush musical history. Playing the songs live with them are some of the most treasured moments that I have experienced as an artist, PERIOD!

In the summer and fall of 2007, my band Velvet Revolver did a co/headlining tour with AIC. At the risk of sounding too dramatic, seeing the crowd?s reaction to these guys night after night was analogous to seeing a loving mother?s face welcoming home her beloved son from war. As the band?s confidence grew with William as a new member and Mike Inez laying down his all-too-familiar low-end growl, you could almost see new life being breathed into the music. Jerry, as a guitar player, was finally being recognized for the true maverick he is. Sean Kinney?s unique, inventive, and powerful drum stylings set him apart from the pack, and this tour settled any questions of why and how. It was a truly moving sight to see, gig after gig.

I am indeed a fan of all sorts and genres of music and I find myself on a high when I see an inspirational live show. This feeling can sometimes carry through for a week or more. In saying that?and maybe it is just me?finding an awe-inspiring rock show these days gets harder and harder. Somewhere in the mid- to late ?90s, there was seemingly a sea change in the music industry that started to create an assembly line for bland commercial musical fodder. How did this happen? What happened that made honest rock ?n? roll go back underground? Things just got straight-up gimmicky and processed. When Alice started the process of putting the pieces back together in 2005, it gave me hope. Hope because a whole generation of young rockers would be able to watch and learn and see how this shit is done!

I have had the good fortune to hear a lot of the new music that the guys have put together for their upcoming recording: fucking AWESOME! I believe we need a band like Alice in Chains now more than ever. A band who always has worn their heart on their collective sleeve. A band who couldn?t give two shits about what is ?hip? or current. These guys have always set trends. With what I have heard of the new music, they will continue to do so.

Layne, may you rest in peace. Alice in Chains, will you please, again, show us the
way?

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2008/09/alice_in_chains_i_back_these_g.php#more

Quote from: FunkyMonkey on September 11, 2008, 02:40:20 PM

wow, Duff is becoming quite the writer! Nice work Duff.

FLYING ON 9/11 FLYING ON 9/11

Posted today at 1:05 am by Duff McKagan

Flying is something that I do on a pretty regular basis. I?ve seen the heightened airport security following Sept. 11, 2001 slowly wane to a point of a near casual ease that, while still rigorous, pales in comparison to the 2 or 3 years after the brutal attacks of that black day. But today, I am flying. Today is Sept.11, 2008.

I always kiss my wife and daughters before I leave on any trip away from them. Last night I took my little girls to dinner and a movie, made special as it was a school night. This morning, I woke up and made them breakfast, then walked them to school. I held on to our parting embrace perhaps a bit longer than was comfortable to them in front of all of their cool friends, I didn?t care. I hugged and kissed them like I did on day the planes were hijacked and met their horrific end. The world?s axis for all humankind seemed to have been put on a tilt that day. My family was young when the Twin Towers went down and my fear for their future at that time was beyond acute.

I don?t write this particular column for the sake of my fear, of my plane to Europe going down. This is not a political piece either. I want to speak on what I have witnessed today at the airport, and how my memory was refreshed by this morning?s CNN constant report of near doom that I watched before I left to the airport. I want to remember how that one event changed ALL of our lives forever. Have we made any REAL progress since then? I don?t know. It probably won?t show for years to come.

Airport security today at LAX was fierce. Back were the checkpoint security stations at the entrance to the airport. Security dogs doing their collective best to sniff out bomb material as cops stopped all cars. I don?t mind and I certainly understand. After ticketing at the airline counter, it was on to the scanner security station where the lines were absolutely gynormous. I don?t mind, I get it. I did get a little freaked out however, when two obvious meth-head tweakers couldn?t find their tickets or ID?s. They were furiously looking through clear plastic garbage bags that served as their luggage. Tweakers freak me out and these two had truthfully unnerved me on this day. God, I hope they aren?t on my plane. The number of TSA and LAPD was easily tripled but I sailed through ( I?m not sure how my speed-freak friends did). There seemed to be a palpable calm, not only at the security lines, but also throughout the whole airport. There seemed to be an air of understanding between everyone who were walking to his or her flight gates. There was not the usual scurrying and strangers seemed to be making eye-contact with each other, as if to say ?hey, you all good??. Maybe this was all in my imagination but honestly I don?t think that it was.

I boarded my flight and my first leg took me to London. As I settled down into my seat, a family came on last minute looking for their rows. A teenage boy found his place and it was right next to me.
? I am scared to be flying on 9/11!? he said to me.
?Where are you headed?? I asked
?Back home to Saudi Arabia?
His name was Saud and he is a Muslim lad, going back home after visiting L.A., where his sister attends the Fashion Institute. His family wore traditional clothing from their part of the world and you could definitely tell that people on the flight were eyeing them intently throughout the flight. This is a phenomenon that I believe Saud sort of took in stride. He?s a normal kid. He likes video games, disco, and soccer. He seemed to respect me as an elder. You don?t get that everyday. He showed me a program on his computer that can make your head fat or skinny on its? self-contained camera. A nice little dude.

Talking to Saud made me realize that we ALL now are on constant alert. Gone perhaps are the days where there seemed to be just a general curiosity about other cultures. We are paranoid now. What do they think of us in Indonesia where there is a large militant Muslim faction. Who are those Muslim guerillas who kidnapped the westerners in the Phillipines back in 2003? Is there some geographic line we as Americans cannot cross because of fear for our safety? Was it there, pre 9/11?

I remember thinking of all of the Muslims that must live in the U.S. back then.
I remember wondering how many might be Taliban operatives. I don?t think that I was alone. Paranoia ran rampage in the first few months on American soil. Could you blame anyone? No. This was my generation?s Pearl Harbor. We were suddenly attacked by some exotic enemy from the extreme peripheral. Some Americans boycotted or vandalized Muslim owned and operated businesses. Others defaced Mosques or worse. Me? I fell into a depression like I had never experienced before, actual clinical depression. Like many of us, I sat and watched CNN for something like 2 straight weeks. When George W. came on network television and vowed revenge, I whole-heartedly backed it. Let?s fuck someone up! Let?s goddamn Roll! There seemed to be no other answer or solution. I wonder now what we from the West could?ve done differently to mend the chasm of misunderstanding that still remains between ?Us? and ?Them?? As it turns out, Sadaam was probably just another in a long line of tyrannical despots?but we already new that.
Of course I landed at Heathrow airport in London without incident. I found out that perhaps we all have some form of trepidation about this momentous date. I met a new friend in Saud from Saudi Arabia, who shared with me some cool things about his life and upbringing. I probably embarrassed my 8 and 11 year-old girls in front of their friends at school earlier this morning, but I don?t care. I will always remember this date for how it changed my life and strengthened my love for my family. This date will also remind me of how horrible we as human beings can be and what we are capable of at our worst.

Duff McKagan: An Enlightening Trip (Abroad)

Posted today at 3:22 am by Duff McKagan

I want to first state that this piece, while political in nature, is not meant to sway votes. I have an opinion on the Presidential candidates. My views will color my writing at times.

A few weeks back, I posed a question to you, the Weekly reader. I asked for you all to form a somewhat concise idea that I could in turn ask in question form of the average European, to find out what they thought of our upcoming election and even where they thought America itself may be headed in the near future. The response from you all was really quite fantastic. Well, as it turns out, on my current trip here, I am being stopped short before I can even get a question out. Opinions here are rampant and overwhelmingly similar. Our conversations go something like this. . .

My first stop was Italy, and my first real dialogue was with a person from the local press in Milan. I asked him if he knew of the recent developments in the U.S. presidential race.

?Oh, yes,? he replied, ? this Palin woman scares the hell out of me and she must be stopped. It seems that she is for real, right?? I asked what he meant by that.

?Well, she likes to shoot guns and doesn?t believe in sex education?? I said that in fact these were the exact things I had heard in a very simplified way, but yes, these things did actually appeal to a large part of the voting constituency back home.

?Oh, shit,? he said, ?they are going to win aren?t they. . .? I said that I did not know.

?Well, this is what I now feel and it makes me very sad.? I left Italy with a sense of embarrassment that I could not shake. (Shame?).

I do realize that every country has its own political and civil issues, and that by no means are we Americans alone in the arena of frustration with empty-promise-laden talking heads, but the world does look to the U.S. for a lead when things like the Georgia crisis happens?that is just the way it is.

OK, then, on to the U.K. The viewpoints on U.S. politics seem to be a bit more keen here in Britain, as our two countries have sort of been in bed on things like the ?War on Terror.? I boarded our band tour bus after we arrived at Heathrow, and promptly asked our driver if he was ?up? on the current American presidential race. His name is Darren, and his statement went something like this:

?Oh, yes, I am quite familiar with the whole thing. This Palin bird from Alaska quite scares the shit out of me. She is getting a lot of coverage over here for how bizarre she actually is to us. The U.K. doesn?t really understand someone like her.? I replied that the people that I know from the U.S. don?t really understand her either.

Our conversation moved in and out of a bunch of different issues, including his knowledge of the Diebold voting machine scandal in Ohio after the 2004 election. We spoke of the out-dated electoral-college system still in place in U.S. presidential races. He asked me if I thought that if a single person?s vote still really held weight. I explained that I was perhaps skeptical, but had no real evidence to back up my skepticism. I took note that if Darren represented the average Englander, their education of current political affairs was well above average. Darren also informed me of a common opinion on Bush/Cheney.

?We are not terribly frightened of Bush. He just seems quite ?thick? [errr, not smart], but Cheney scares us to death. It appears to us that he is running the whole show. If the McCain/Palin ticket wins, we are more afraid of her than him.?

In these days of complete-saturation press coverage, could it be that actual campaign policy is ignored or erased by the sheer volume of ?face time? with the camera? On top of that, if some gun-toting Bible-touting right-wing conservative ?scares the hell? out of the average European, whom do they appeal to in America? Look, I?m not dumb, and I do realize that there is a major evangelical movement in the U.S. that can sway an election one way or the other. I also know that the NRA carries a lot of weight. But the more people that I speak with over here, the more INSANE it seems that God and guns are such a huge issue in politics. . . what the fuck? Instead of America perhaps leading the way to world-wide enlightenment, it seems perhaps that ideas from the times of Constantine are being drawn on to control what happens within our borders.

A few days later I had an open conversation with a mix of businessmen and women in London. Their concerns echoed exactly those of our bus driver, without really swaying one way or the other. While they have no idea what Obama would actually do once in office, they would much rather take their collective chances with him than be faced with what they conceived as a darker version of Bush/Cheney. These opinions were shared in Scotland and Ireland too . . . exactly.

Well, folks, there it is. Most of you reading this, being mostly Seattleites and presumably mostly Democratic, are probably bashing your foreheads against a brick wall somewhere. I didn?t set out on this mini-odyssey to depress you, the reader. I was rather hoping to get some insight myself, and to share with you. I would rather be informed than walk around in an ignorant haze. I hope at least that this little article will stimulate thought and perhaps even dialogue. I think I will try to find something humorous to write about next week. Remind me to tell you guys about ?fart tennis.? Until next week, cheers!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2008/09/an_enlightening_trip.php

Duff McKagan: Fart Tennis

Posted Oct. 1 at 10:52 pm by Duff McKagan

In the last couple of weeks, my blogs have contained some pretty serious subjects that I felt needed addressing. While I love good discourse and intelligent banter, I also love humor, and I believe at times I just take myself too damn seriously. Maybe we all do. I will now step off of the soapbox and unveil another side of what makes my world tick.

If any of you have been reading my last couple of columns, you?ve probably ascertained that I have been traveling a lot. The reason is that I?ve been touring with my most killer band Loaded in Europe. ?Most killer band?Loaded?? you might say. Not only do we think we are sexy motherfuckers (um, we may be all around 40 but we do listen to a lot of Prince before we go onstage), but we are great friends and that counts for something even bigger. We are also killer because we have discovered some of the most awesome tour-bus antics and on-board ethics that are second to none.

Touring with nine guys on a bus, playing every night, and booking only two hotels during a 15-day stint could and does wreak havoc on a guy?s personal space. We do our laundry in the sink of the venue after we play and hang it in the bus to dry at night. Personal space gets smaller and smaller. You must be very observant of everyone?s ever-changing mood, in case a possible situation gets blown out of proportion in a hurry. Our way of dealing with these close quarters is humor. A ton of it.

?Ass to ass, dog!? is the saying when two of us approach each other in the claustrophobic aisle between bunks. This saying came a bunch of years back from a huge security guy who got ruffled when a band member (from which band, I do not know) passed him once crotch-to-ass in a space about the same as an aisle on a Southwest flight. This security guy did not exactly dig the fact that his manhood may have been compromised in that flashing instant. He dressed down the young rocker right then and there: ?Man, it?s always ass to ass, dog . . . ASS TO ASS!? This incident has become folklore in Loaded-land. On the Loaded bus we practice the ass-to-ass program, unless we might be feeling a bit frisky. One of us might approach with our butt facing in, but with a quick turn at passing, you can surprise your fellow band member with a ?junk drag,? that is, crotch-to-ass. It?s really good fun! Hey, I?ve got a college education and I am a responsible father and husband, but hey, you just can?t beat juvenile fun sometimes! My wife joined me in London for a couple of days in the middle of this all-male tour, and I had to quickly break a few bad habits and curb my ?F bombs? (although I pleasantly refrained the ?junk drag? upon first seeing her!).

The first rule on a bus is, NO POOPING ON BOARD! The toilets on tour buses will not accommodate solids. Well, a tour diet is never very wholesome. In fact, it is downright gross. We eat dinner after we play, and you can only imagine the cornucopia open at midnight or 1 a.m. Pizza? Swarma? We always end up with spicy Indian food (there is always great late-night Indian food in the UK). Remember, nine guys, one bus, few rest stops . . . lots of flatulence. ?Evil? Dave is one of our guitar techs, and he is from Sheffield, England. This dude is drop-dead funny. He suggested that we associate a word that sounds like the fart that just happened. Some sound like, say, ?teapot.? The more ?throaty? flatus may sound like ?HAROLD? or ?STREEEETPOST.? This passes time and broadens one?s vocabulary; coming up with new names is almost like playing Scrabble.

This ?name the fart? game was challenging enough, when upon reaching London we met Mike. Mike is my wife?s cousin Heidi?s new boyfriend, and I was sort of keen to check him out. Heidi has had a couple of real lulus lately as far as boyfriends go, and Mike was going to get a full going-over by me before I gave my OK. After we played our show in London and the crew had loaded out, we all just kind of kicked back shootin? the shit (the band, the crew, my wife, Mike, and Heidi). I think that I was trying to see how Mike could ?hang with the boys,? so I brought up ?name the fart.?

?Oh?? Mike said without the least trace of a flinch, ?have you guys tried Fart Tennis??

?Why, no,? we must have all replied at once, maybe too eager to hear of something more inane than ?name the fart? to do with our idle time.

?Service,? Mike said, with a quick burst of brown air; ?You must return serve or I win.? Mike became our Fart Sensei at that moment. It was like the world, all at once, had been revealed. Needless to say, I gave Heidi the thumbs up on Mike.

Now that I am back from tour, I don?t have anyone to play Fart Tennis with. My daughters run from me when I suggest we play a few sets. Anyway, my diet is back to normal, so I think my ranking would probably drop like an anchor, as I wouldn?t be as well-armed to return serve. My dog would for sure be our house champion. All I have now is the fond memory of that tour bus and my eight friends, my competitors, and my band, Loaded.

Well, on second thought, we are going to Japan in three weeks. SERVICE!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2008/10/fart_tennis.php

Family, Hold Back!

Posted Oct. 8 at 10:14 pm by Duff McKagan

My parents were born in the 1920?s and lived through the depression. Although I came much, much later (I am the last of 8 kids and we are spread over 20 years), we learned from lessons they were hard taught growing up in a time when there just simply wasn?t any work and therefore money.

If you are at any McKagan family gathering (a large crowd to be sure), try muttering ?FHB? and see what happens. Well, I?ll tell you what will happen, you will suddenly see the 8 brothers and sisters taking minuscule portions on their respective plates at the pot-luck buffet table. ?Family Hold Back? is a saying that comes from years of simply too many kids and not enough to feed us all of the time. One of us would almost always certainly have a friend over for dinner and this is when the secret code of ?FHB? started? make sure the guest had enough to eat, take a small portion, don?t say anything.

I remember my mom telling me stories of what it was like growing up in the depression. Stories of not having enough money to heat the house in the winter and wearing sweaters and coats all of the time. Stories of how her mother would fix a broken roller skate or doll and that would be THE Christmas present. These stories have haunted every major financial decision I have made in adulthood. Fear of ending up in some film-noire- like poor house. My mother I think never quite trusted our government and our fiscal system since. We kids were taught by example, lessons of frugality and thrift. These lessons probably kept us all away from being caught up in the recent mortgage crisis directly; you see, we do not spend beyond our respective ?pay-grades?. But people from my generation didn?t all have depression-era parents and I think the fear from that era did not a lasting impression make.

The economy seems to be headed into some sort of prolonged recession. If the $700 billion dollar bailout doesn?t see any kind of worthwhile results, we may indeed be heading into an economic depression. Greed seems to be the culprit. We all wanted more and we want it right fucking NOW! We were led to believe that a $400k loan on a $30k a year salary was do-able. Our lust for bigger and better turned us away from thinking logically. The big financial institutions jumped at the opportunity to make the fast buck without thinking or caring about the long-term quagmire that this sort of shallow-sighted banking practice would create. Of course, the people who got fucked by these loans are now being asked to pony up and bail out the same institutions that screwed them. It just doesn?t make any sense.

I think we all now feel a little ?dirty? for our high rate of credit card spending in our race to accrue more stuff. Our modern capitalist system is based on an amazing economic philosophy. Adam Smith I believe, never envisioned the sheer greed and corruption that his 18th century book ?Wealth of Nations? would eventually be party to.

A Price/Waterhouse employee whom was laid off, killed his family and then himself today apparently over the woes of the stock market slump and his low prospects for any work. It is time indeed to pull in the reigns.

I hear talk on the radio of whomever wins this election having to enact an almost Roosevelt-like ?New Deal? program to resurrect our economy. In short, the ?New Deal? created jobs through Federal Works, like building highways and dams. While these things did help the country in the long run, they were funded pretty much all by the taxpayer. If it weren?t for WWII, who?s to say if this program would?ve worked. Nothing like a good war to re-invigorate private business. I don?t know that much about economics but it seems to me that we need a fiscal-system mixture of socialism and capitalism. Nationalized health care like England and corporate pride like the Pacific Rim.

I think it is time for us all to perhaps look back and study the history of our country. It?s time to read the testimonials of the depression-era (try David M. Kennedy?s Pulitzer prize winning ?Freedom From Fear?). If we can just all stop wanting so much from too little, maybe the race to accrue wealth and material will wane. The peer pressure of ?keeping up with the Joneses? has simply got to stop. FHB!

Personally, I look forward to the prospects of pulling back a bit. Going to Wenatchee for Thanksgiving will provide just as much family time as going to Hawaii. My daughters will have just as much fun. I will do my part and frequent local stores and restaurants as much as is feasible, but I will also be a lot more cognizant of what something costs. I doubt we will splurge on Christmas presents like we have for the past 10 or so years, but hell, we have everything we need and a ton more. Just maybe this whole crisis will bring my little family closer together.

The other night, I was telling my 8-year-old daughter a bedtime story. Usually, these consist of made up lore of how our family dog is a super-hero at night and that is why he sleeps all day. But this night, I decided to tell her of the stories my mother had told me about her growing up in the depression. My daughter thought it was really neat that a doll could be fixed up and re-gifted as a present. It never really dawned on me that perhaps my daughters really don?t need the newest and best things all of the time. Maybe it is time for me to tell them more of the values I was taught growing up in a large family with working class parents. The values that I learned from the depression era. Values that maybe even I have overlooked as of late.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2008/10/family_hold_back.php

The Talk

Posted yesterday at 11:15 pm by Duff McKagan

by Duff McKagan

Last week, I was faced with a hurdle every parent must eventually face. You see, my wife and I have two daughters, the older one just entering middle school this year. With middle school comes the sudden pressures of acting ?grown up,? looking ?cool,? and talking about. . . wait for it. . . SEX. The dreaded moment has come for me as a father: the moment for THE TALK.

Somehow it got back to my wife and I that the kids at school have been joking around about sex. ?What the hell does ?joking around? mean?!? said I. Well, apparently middle schoolers are getting pretty damn cavalier regarding the depth of carnal gossip. It seems that there is definitely a different paradigm these days, a higher bar set. Our youth are exposed to way more stuff, thanks to the World Wide Internets. Gone are the days of finding Dad?s Playboy under his mattress and getting a five-second perusal of some T and A. To add to the complexity of my personal conundrum, we have been in L.A. for the last few years (during the school year, anyway). My wife claims that the peer pressure on women here is indescribable. This peer pressure absolutely has a ?trickle-down? effect on teenage girls, which of course ?trickles down? even further to the preteens. This peer pressure has everything to do with outward appearances and NOTHING to do with intellect and soul. . . well, that?s my opinion anyway.

There are so many great kid-friendly Web sites these days that I would find it somewhat archaic to ban my kids from computer usage. Of course the downside is that 80 percent of Internet content is porn, and it only takes one wrong move for a child to suddenly access all kinds of stuff they just shouldn?t see. My kids use the computer to do homework, communicate with their friends, and access all kinds of new music on YouTube, but again, how does a parent keep on top of everything they see? The new unspoken parenting rule is to only let your kids use the computer when you are in the same room with them. . . it?s just not possible, though. My girls are really awesome and kind and would really feel embarrassed to see anything they shouldn?t on the Web, but how do I REALLY know what they have already been exposed to? In my day, you had to show ID to purchase an adult magazine. Now? It?s just a click away!

I don?t know how many people read this column, and I also don?t know if anyone who reads this is a parent, but let me tell you guys something: Apparently, oral sex in middle school is approached as nonchalantly as maybe kissing was back when I was that age. There is no way my two angels are gonna be ANY part of that nonsense, believe you me! If iChat and YouTube are the new hiding places for extracurricular activities such as this, how do I find out? Fuck, my mind starts to go a million miles an hour thinking about the responsibilities and safeguards we ?information age? parents have to juggle. I don?t want to spy on my kids. There HAS to be trust. They are dealing with so much more data than we did at that age. I will, however, shut down anything that brings harm to my daughters. If I were to find out that anything bad was happening, all of my Utopian hubbub would go out the window, and it would get real 1950?s in the McKagan household, and in a hurry. On top of that, I?d have my shotgun at the ready and you?d better bring an arm! But I digress.

Of course I knew the day would eventually come when I would have to face the reality of my girls growing up. I really try to have an open and non-judgmental relationship with my daughters, and my goal is for them to ALWAYS feel safe coming to me with any problems or ordeals. The time, alas, had come for my wife and I to sit down and speak somewhat candidly about the ?birds and bees? with our 8- and 11-year-olds. I started to sweat. ?OK, McKagan family conference!? is how I always start our team meetings. The girls always get excited at the prospect of some unknown outlier that my wife or I might have in store. This time, however, when I started with ?You know that you girls can tell us anything. . . ,? a slight look of dread started to spread across their faces. When I said the word ?sex,? my 8-year-old started to bawl. Oh shit, this isn?t going to be easy. Things did get settled down once it was understood that no one was in trouble and that this wouldn?t be an inquisition. My older daughter really stepped up, as it were, and actually put the conversation at ease with her candor. ?Yes, Dad, the older girls do talk about all of that stuff but I think that it?s pretty silly. . . they are just trying to act ?grown up.?? The mood of the talk became lighter and our family bond became a little tighter that afternoon.

This past weekend, my wife and I had to go away, and I brought my new laptop with me. The old one is now my older daughter?s, but I haven?t gotten around to resetting any of my profiles on it. My AIM and iChat profiles show and ?transmit? from both. As I was sitting down to look at some e-mail (and sports scores!), my AIM box popped up and a conversation was in full swing. It was my daughter and a bunch of her friends, completely aloof to the knowledge that I was reading their conversations from 5,000 miles away. I felt sure that I was going to see something I wasn?t supposed to, some alter-world of middle-school girls. I envisioned myself calling home to their aunt Heidi (who was staying the weekend with them) and grounding my daughters for something that I was certain to see from my newfound instant-message spy spot. The IMs remained innocent and sweet, speaking of nothing more bawdy than how cute so-and-so?s new puppy was. Boy, did I feel guilty. On second thought, maybe not guilty enough to perhaps keep my profiles in sync, for the next few years anyway.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/

Get In The Ring!

Posted yesterday at 9:04 pm by Duff McKagan

My column from last week entitled ?The Talk? was a little story about my and my wife?s first experience talking to our daughters about sex. The response that this column received was amazingly varied and also overwhelming (I was even called a queer and told to go to therapy! Killer!). The good news is that most people were writing back with their own experiences, lending weight to the fact that it does ?take a village to raise a child.? There were, however, some responses that I feel needed addressing.

This is a public forum and I do know that whatever I may put forth will come under scrutiny. That is absolutely cool with me. Know this, though: This is not an advice column! These are simply stories or observances that I have made from my distinct vantage point. This will be my 11th week, and I feel it is OK now to tell you my side to a couple things.
First off. To you other parents and readers that read last week?s column, thank you for all the good tips and kind words. This parenting thing is a trip! You definitely learn something new every day. I am lucky that I had a mother who taught me some really virtuous lessons from things that happened in her past. I use a lot of these lessons today in raising my own kids, and I need them because there is no ?how to? guide when it comes to raising your own. You have simply got to ?put in the hours? and pay attention. I tell my girls every night that I love them, but I know that I have to do much more. That ?much more? is what NOBODY can school me on. My wife, our two daughters, and I have our distinct footprint, and no generalization quite fits our story. I don?t think that I am alone on this?are you hearing me, parents? We kind of make it up as we go, don?t we?

For instance: Call me uneducated if you must, but I did not really understand what a ?progressive? education was until my older daughter got into fifth grade at her ?progressive? school! It took me that long to figure out that there were differences. How was I to know? Well, you just learn as you go, I guess. I had no idea how to change a diaper until I had to change my own child?s on her first day home?that?s the way it is. There are, however, things that are somewhat innate. Knowing what is appropriate, being a father to girls, gut feelings guide me on this journey. There was one response to last week?s column that sent up red flags for me, and I will paraphrase. The reader stated that he showed his 9-year-old daughter porn to illustrate his ?sex talk.? Hey dude, NOT cool and NOT OK! I believe that a father?s job with daughters is fraught with enough challenges and tightrope walks. A man should show his undying love and support for his girls, and be a strong and understanding shoulder and sounding board (among many other things!). ?Visual guides? simply cross what I for one at least think are appropriate lines? to say the very LEAST!

OK, there were also a couple of quandaries about whether I thought modern rock music, and more pointedly, my old band Guns N? Roses, were partially to blame for some of the problems in our society today. Were some of the issues that I spoke of with my girls (sex talk at school, etc.), partially provoked by GNR? As an artist and part-time historian of music, I have a few things to say on this:

1) I remember being somewhat amused in a Seattle U. philosophy class when I learned that the saying ?What?s the matter with our kids today?? originated from a quote by an ancient Greek philosopher?my point being that the question of society getting worse and worse and our kids responding in a more and more negative way has been going on for a long time. I don?t think our kids act worse than kids of the 1940s or 1840s or 640s. If anything, modern-day parents are probably more on top of things because we can instantly communicate with each other by phone or text-messaging. I get calls from other dads at school to give me a ?heads-up? on school dramas or overheard conversations all the time. Also, I think parents are more educated on what signs to look for to spot abuse in other kids. We are educated because of modern-day communication.

2) Music has been the fall guy for sexual deviancy and social outrage for a long time. Music is an expression of feelings. Music can be social commentary. A band like GNR let the world into the life of five 21-year-olds who lived a somewhat wild and unedited existence. Period. Ravel?s orchestral piece Bolero, from around 1920, got denounced because of the snare drum solo?s cadence. It was criticized for being the same cadence as fornication. We can say now, ?So fucking what?? But it was believed then that society was indeed in danger because of this. We all know that the word ?jazz? meant ?fucking? back in the 1910s and 20s, but we don?t care, because we see how ridiculous it was that there was any outrage at all to jazz music. It?s just music. Turn your FM dial left or right in any U.S. city and you will find a smooth jazz (smooth ?fucking??) station. Personally, I like the sound of that! (I meant the music, you pervert!).

It was also asked if I had in fact filled my daughter?s in on my own past. I assume that this means my World Championship run at drugs and alcohol. The answer is, yes I have. In fact, in about the 3rd grade, my oldest daughter queried me on why I never drank wine with the other adults. I just sort of launched into my story with her. I told her than I am an alcoholic and that if I drank one beer that I probably wouldn?t be able to stop until I went crazy. We have this talk about once or twice a year now and I remind them both that they will have to watch themselves when drinking comes around them in their teen years. They are healthily horrified by my stories and I will keep telling them in more detail as the girls mature.

Well, I am glad that the editors at the illustrious Seattle Weekly were kind enough to let me rant and call it a ?column.? I hope that perhaps someone reading this has something else to add. I have just received word that I will be covering our presidential election results for next week?s column.
Oh, Sarah, you?ve been a bad girl?it?s time for some detention!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2008/10/get_in_the_ring.php

Obama Kicks Some Ass

Posted yesterday at 11:17 pm by Duff McKagan

Wow, what a relief. We all were ready for this and now it has happened?and in our lifetime. We may have had some doubt along the way, but people, we have succeeded in having our voices heard and our concerns tethered. McCain conceded by 8:30 PST and if that ain?t a landslide, I don?t know what is.

When I was initially collared to write this particular piece, I knew that my writing speed and style would be extremely challenged by the sheer amount of information that I would then have to assimilate and then make somewhat readable for the Weekly?s readers in just a few hour period. I found a way to overcome some of that in the way of penning a somewhat ?Dewey-esque? jumpstart- yes, I pre-wrote most of this piece. I have been an Obama supporter from the moment that I saw him speak from Iowa last January during their caucus. Something is his message and delivery that night actually MOVED me. I was born 3 months after JFK was assassinated, and in my 44 years I had never witnessed a politician that actually inspired?until I plunked down in front of my TV to watch Barack that night. I believe so strongly that the rest of us are ready for a fresh direction and hence voted this way that I will only write this victory summary of today like this; Barack Obama is the new President of the United States!

This last couple months of campaigning has been nothing short of high drama. When Sarah Palin was chosen virtually out of nowhere to be John McCain?s running mate, we all scratched our head and hoped that Hilary?s massive contingent of followers wouldn?t make the knee-jerk jump to that camp. When Sarah immediately got on the soapbox to spew forth her extreme right-wing views (Bible-thumpin?, gun-toting, she-devil that she is), the rest of us teetered between a feeling of fear and the knowledge that Hilary?s backers were not going to go Palin?s way after all. How could they? She is for everything that Hilary Clinton is against. The drama escalated after we saw her absolutely fall flat and freak out on her interview with Katie Couric. We were enthralled by Tina Fey?s supposed parody of that interview on SNL?but it was an almost exact word-for-word re-enactment!

We here in Seattle live in a somewhat liberal bubble (or are we now the norm? Has the bubble popped?). Today at my local polling station, confidence for America?s future abounded with every ?I Voted? sticker being passed out. The ?feel? of this election is indeed far different from any I have taken part of in the past. The dividing line between Republican and Democrat seems to be an angry and gaping chasm. This time, the awkward friendliness of the election appears more than just cumbersome. This country needed to draw a line in the sand within itself. Like sand, this line will wash away once we see that we are all better off united, with one intended goal. Or, so I hope.

I want to now say congratulations to us all. We have collectively taken part in pushing for something different and outstanding. America can perhaps be glimpsed upon again as a place for forward thinking and democratic ideals. I am not saying this because we elected a young, black President, but because I think we all realized that Obama is the guy who will try the hardest with the freshest ideas. Ideas on how to get us out of all the holy hell that America holds in tenuous balance. The economy, the ?war? in Iraq, the Afghanistan hullabaloo, global warming and our utter dependence on oil?.just to name a few. He has got his work cut out for him, and we have let him know that we have his back. This is cool. I am not saying that he is the answer to all of our problems, only rather that we made the wisest choice to get us moving in the right direction.

We are at a time in history that the political ?center? has perhaps shifted towards the left. We are not Europe, but tipping our hat to them for helping to shine a light on thinking and acting globally is what we are now doing. Government doesn?t have to step in for everything, but health care issues and Wall Street's overindulgence need some sort of tough Big Brother. I think Europe and the rest of the world are breathing a sigh of relief at the simple fact that we didn?t elect an outdated antique and his scary, hapless sidekick. With our political ?center? being re-aligned, we can now hopefully be seeing the end of days (pun intended) to our freaky Evangelical right and the Republicans' shameless kowtowing to them and their ilk. I try not to live in fear and/or voice bad thoughts or intentions. Hear me now though; whatever happens, Sarah Palin?s political career should come to an end. She is straight-up dangerous. Enough said about that.

Now, let?s fix some shit!

Quote from: FunkyMonkey on November 05, 2008, 02:02:04 PM

Funny, Duff's greatest moments financially and muscially came under Republican presidents (guess life wasn't too bad her in the U. S. of A..... Ha, nice article by Duff, but not all Republicans are big and evil.

Look What Happened On The Way to Obama

Posted Nov. 11 at 7:52 pm by Duff McKagan

by Duff McKagan

It may be suggested to enter this read under 'RAMBLE' in your file of an already busy and confused Web world. The point, I am afraid, never becomes crystal clear in this piece. I hope only that it provokes some thought.

I said in lasts weeks column that we had made the wisest choice in Obama for our next U.S. president. In saying that, I also meant that we weren?t just voting for social change, we were putting the right man in office, period. I would be remiss not to mention however, some views that I believe are shared by many on race relations- and the evolution thereof- in our country up to this point.

In 1969, I started kindergarten here in Seattle and it happened to be the same year that desegregation started in our public school system (also known as ?busing?). Now, all I knew was that black kids from Madrona Elementary got sent to my school (Bryant), while white kids from Bryant got sent to Madrona. The kids who got to ride the bus were seen as ?cool? and grown-up and that was the end of our ?little kid? conceptions. You see, we were far too young to have any racial stereotype pre-thoughts. The kids that I matriculated elementary school with stayed pretty much the same through Eckstein Middle to Roosevelt H.S. We would hear of race ?wars? in the upper schools but we younger kids were largely aloof and mystified by them (try being 6 and hearing of something called ?White Rabbit? day, a pre-set race rumble at Eckstein! We actually thought it was a running race!). I think when forced busing started in the upper schools that year; the older kids already had started to form their thoughts (or, more likely, their parents? thoughts). about racial hatred and the like. On top of all this, one of my older sisters Carol had married a black man in the mid-sixties and had their first son (my first nephew) when I was two years old. They had a daughter 2 years after that. Furthermore, my brother-in-law Dexter (their dad) was the coolest guy around and I wanted to be like him. I knew that I would get angry when someone used the ?N? word around me, but I wasn?t sure why (years later, when Axl used it in a GNR song, I would however defend his artistic freedom as he used it in a wry and 3rd person context It was, for me, ironic to say the least). I certainly didn?t understand that a civil rights movement was taking place. I only marched with my mom in the ?Martin Luther King Peace March? when he died because I knew that I would get to miss school that day!

Racial borders meant very little to me. It was only in the 6th grade that some real bullshit entered my world. I had a friend named Willie and we were goofing around at our lockers. Some hard-ass school counselor came around the corner and caught us. We were both taken to the office and our parents were called. My mom left work to come to my school and talk to the administration while I was kept in another room by myself. When it was over, I was kicked out of school for 3 days due to, get this, a racially motivated fight! Willie and I were stunned and ashamed. My mother said that people were still stuck in old ways of thinking and that they didn?t have the means to just see two kids ?messing around?, they could only see a ?black? kid and a ?white? kid fighting! It was like a veil has suddenly been lifted for me and I could see for the first time, bigotry and ignorance, both black and white.

We kids however, still had each other, and we all tried our best to blot out the grown-up world and their old ways of thinking. There were younger kids now coming up behind us with still younger parents. It seemed that by the time the kids from the mid to late 60?s started to have kids of their own, starting in the early eighties, bigotry from parents really started to fall off. There were more and more inter-racial parents (black-white, white-Asian, Asian-black, etc?) and therefore there were more and more racially mixed kids popping up. America was truly becoming the melting pot.

There was still though an ?old guard? if you will. Men and women from our ?Greatest Generation? that could not get out from under their old ways of thinking and the stereotypes that they were raised with. It is and was not their fault. Babies are not born with hatred or bias, it is taught. This is not just a white thing either. The older black generation have and had such mistrust and fear of the white man and their apparatus that they in turn taught this to their young. These generations are now dying off. It is our turn to stem the tide and forget the past. Am I asking to forget that this country of so-called ?liberty? was started with slavery intact? No. But we, of this generation have started to simply move on. Is there total equality at the workplace? I certainly doubt it. Again, our generation is doing better than the one before it.

One of my great-nephews (a wonderful mix of intelligence, poise, humor, and race) attends Kent-Meridian High School. It is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse schools in the Northwest. I asked him what it was like and how well kids mixed together there. ?Well Uncle Duff, what do you mean??
?I mean, do kids from different races and ethnicities hang out together?? I said.
? Uh, yeah, we go to the same school and if you come down here looking for different colors and such you will get confused?
?Confused??
?Yea, it?s like a rainbow, we all hang out together?
?Well cool? I thought to myself. Just as we were about to hang up, he chimed in with a parting warning.
? Its not like this everywhere? He went on to tell that one of my other great-nephews (whom is also ?mixed?) gets stares and glares at his high-school on Camano Island. I guess our rural hinterland is still catching up. It kind of bummed me out.

Sometimes I feel that friends look at me as an idealist. I sometimes hope for more than is actually ?practical? to hope for. Obama came into our collective vision at the right time. Our economy is in shambles, we are fighting TWO wars, oil prices reached all-time highs, and new clean energy sources were not getting looked into..we needed something fresh. I also believe that the days of out-of-touch old guys in politics are coming to an end. I just hope other out-of-touch ideas and biases will also soon come to an end.

Duff McKagan: Things I Am Thankful For This Year

Posted yesterday at 10:30 pm by Duff McKagan

It's that time of the year that we all either love or hate. For me, Thanksgiving has always been a special time of year.

Growing up in a family of eight kids?with humor as it's main ingredient?has most certainly been exciting and interesting. In my adult years, however, touring and living in Los Angeles has mostly kept me from coming back home to Seattle for this first part of the holidays. The spirit of my family has thankfully always remained with me (even in my 'dark' period!) and this spirit has kept me sane. This spirit gently nudges me to think of how fortunate I am, and how some others may not be. With that being said, here is a quick list of things of some of the things I am thankful for.

Last Saturday I did my weekly grocery shopping at my usual store. This store happens to have a recycling center that will give cash for your cans and bottles. Every Saturday I would see the usual 8 to 12 homeless guys in line there. These fellas go through the neighborhood recycle bins basically to make their living. No big deal. Last weekend though, I saw a rather big commotion at the end of the parking lot where the recycle center sits. When I started to walk past it I saw why; instead of the usual 8 to 10 homeless guys, there was a long line of residents of the area. This is the first time I have witnessed this in the 15 years that I have lived here. I am thankful that I can still provide for my wife and kids this year.

The mornings at my house can be a little hectic and stressful. Getting two girls ready for school while also trying to get yourself ready for the day can be overwhelming at times. My youngest daughter has always had a kooky aversion to footwear-she just HATES putting on shoes. Me on the other hand, cannot really even function before I have ingested two very strong cups of coffee...Daddy has been known to get grumpy. Sometimes REAL grumpy!

My wife is really sweet in the morning, usually getting up earlier than me just to make the toad venom (this is what we call our morning brew). By the time we walk to school together, everything smooths out and our collective stress levels wane. I am thankful that my youngest daughter HAS two feet on which to hate putting shoes on. I am thankful that my wife understands my addiction to strong coffee. I am thankful that my wife and kids love me unconditionally.

The world has been getting pretty crazy in the last decade. September 11, the war in Iraq, and this latest credit crunch leading to recession. America was given a choice a few weeks back and I believe that we were extremely prudent and wise. I am thankful that we now have a President (elect) that I have faith in to lead us out of these woes. I am thankful that we have a president that is smart. I am glad that we made this choice together.

I am thankful that I have a dog (he shows, every day, that he is thankful that he has me!).

A bunch of years ago, I moved to LA and formed GNR. When this band became successful and my world started to spin out of control, my three best friends from childhood would call and/or come down to visit. These visits had the result of keeping me grounded. My best friend, Andy, took me to the emergency room in '94 when I suffered acute pancreatitus, effectively saving my life. I am thankful that I have always had my three best friends from childhood. Andy, Eddy, and Brian, I know you read this column, and I love you guys.

I am thankful that Mike F reads this column and calls me a 'butt-rocker'. I like inter-action with the world, good or bad.

I am thankful to be alive.

I am thankful that Krist Novoselic wrote about 'What Really Happened at the '92 VMAs, because I don't really remember.

Kim Warnick and Kurt Bloch were and are two of the coolest and most informed musical people one could ever hope to encounter on this planet. They are also both my friends. I am thankful to have grown up in an area and in a city that fosters individual thinking and oddball trains of thought. I am thankful for growing up with Kurt and Kim.

I am thankful that there may be a plan to bring our troops home safely soon from Iraq and Afghanistan.

I am thankful that a new season of 'Flight of the Conchords' is almost here.

I am thankful that I no longer have the shakes from alcohol. I am thankful for Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction. I am thankful that I can afford health insurance for my family. I am thankful that I had a loving mother who shared with me, lessons hard taught to her. I am thankful that I had a mom who loved me (she loved me most out of all 8 kids, of course). I am thankful that I have been able to travel around the world a good 10 times playing rock music. I am thankful that I can remember 3 of those trips (the others, while I have proof by the stamps in my passport, must be filed in the "All the Shit I Don't Remember' file).

I am thankful that the Seattle Weekly lets me write whatever I want and that people actually read it!

I grew up under the watchful eye of seven older siblings, a couple of which are more than old enough to be my parents. As a result, I was an uncle when I was 2 and many of my nephews and nieces have been having kids of their own (For a while now actually. My oldest great-nephew, Dexter, is 16, I think!). When my wife married me 10 years ago, she also married into the fact that she was suddenly a great-aunt! My family is huge and varied and we all really love one another. I am thankful to my brothers and sisters for having children, and for their children doing the same. I am thankful and honored that I got to be your uncle Kyle McKagan...

I know that the basis of this holiday is rooted in a fable about pilgrims and native people. Hey, I read 'Mayflower'. I can be as cynical as the rest. The spirit that I feel around the time of this holiday, however, can never be scrutinized. It has been taught to me by loving people. This spirit will be lived THROUGH me to show that love myself, to others.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Duff McKagan: Alternative To What?
Posted yesterday at 9:13 pm by Duff McKagan

(http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/blochleft.jpg)
Kurt Bloch, left, at Sub Pop's 20th anniversary party at Hattie's Hat on April 2. Photo by Sarah Joann Murphy. Duff McKagan's column runs every Thursday on Reverb.

I got an email the other day with a question from a friend who was basically trying to settle a bet. The argument was over what actually defines 'Alternative' music and also what makes up an 'indie' band. While on the one hand, I hoped my answer at least put some clarity to my friend's argument, I also knew that my 'answer' would be un-provable. You see, I was around when the term 'alternative' was first used for radio and I was an early advocate, but much of this period in music is now all but forgotten. Rock history will more than likely remain silent as to the progression of radio's role.

Kurt Bloch should have a star. That is, of course, if modern rock music had a street on which stars were placed for its pioneers. If any of you indie rockers are scratching your head now and saying "Who?" well, shame on you. Back before there was Sub Pop here in Seattle, and back before there was any attention at all being paid to the Northwest as far as music goes, there was a scene and it was truly 'alternative' and 'indie'.

In 1978, Kurt had a radio program at Nathan Hale High School and he simply played and did what he wanted to do. Kurt had started a band with his brother, Al, named the Cheaters. The Cheaters started to write songs and play gigs, mostly at parties and mostly for fun, but they were playing their own UNIQUE music. There were no record labels back then other than the Majors, but Kurt wanted to put a single out. He did what, unbeknown to him, other independent bands then were doing in other parts of America; he started his own label.

Understand that if your music is not 'commercial' enough for a larger record company to see a profit in, you are left to your own devices. These 'devices' became THE spearhead for burgeoning individualistic punk rock scenes throughout North America. Rock radio wouldn't touch it because advertisers didn't see the value in catering to a small smattering of punk rock and other 'alternative' styles. These other alternatives were bands like Motorhead, Iggy, Grandmaster Flash, and even AC/DC for their first record at least (the first American press for AC/DC came thanks to 'PUNK' magazine, in fact).

On the far left of your FM dial, you will find the stations that have been given space according to some FCC rule that provides for non-profit organizations with radio broadcast capabilities. In Seattle, KCMU started to play national and international bands like U2, Psycadelic Furs, the Ramones, Iggy, and Souxie and the Banshees while also propping up local acts such as the Fastbacks (w/Mr. Bloch), Solger, X-15, the Accident, and DOA. You weren't gonna like all of it, but KCMU became a radio station that started to expand the local music scenes' horizons. Punk Rock and New Wave gigs began to attract such a large crowd, in fact, that an AM music station (KJET!!) sprang up. Commercial alternative radio had arrived in Seattle.

Indie music comes from a term first used in the early 80's by smaller stand-alone record stores. One could search through records using the alphabetical tags that popped above the 12" height of the rows of records. More adventuresome listeners could seek the harder-to-find bands in the 'indie' bin. Simply put, these were smaller acts on tiny independent labels. Of course, as the popularity of these bands grew, major labels offered up a more lucrative deals to these acts. The 'indie' bin however, remained the place to find cutting edge music, and eventually became a marketing tool for major record companies later in the 80s until this very day. A band would garner much more 'street cred' if they were deemed to be an indie band. Larger labels soon began to form smaller imprint labels to cater to this record-buying street ethic.

Alternative and Indie music became very, very popular. Like all things that become popular, there are those that exploit them for the cash value. This commercialism, in turn, causes a rush to the bandwagon...and this is what we witnessed sometime around 1998. Where once had been originality with the likes of Pearl Jam and the Beastie Boys, now stood watered-down copycats such as Creed and Limp Biskit. Alternative radio had once been a place to find new music and re-visit killer songs by the Stooges and Joy Division. The term 'alternative' was fast becoming the magnet by which audience-seeking advertisers would be drawn to.

Of course with alternative radio becoming so commercial, programmers will eventually do what their advertisers ask...PLAY IT SAFE and don't alienate any part of our audience. Radio has become so damn vanilla that it's a wonder ANYONE listens anymore. I know that I don't.

"Indie rock" on the other hand, has become a catchall phrase for music that must seemingly remain lo-fi. I get it, and I really like a lot of indie music (are Shiny Toy Guns indie?), but when a band like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs claim that they are 'indie' while being signed to the biggest major corporate conglomerate record label (Interscope/Universal), I just have a hard time swallowing indie cred. It just seems like another selling tool and a good one at that. Hey, there is nothing wrong with making money whilst doing your art. The 'indie' moniker alas, just seems to be another contrived piece of misleading word-smithery and low-resolution imagery. Hey, Urban Outfitter's has got the one-stop indie lifestyle thing down to a T!

So, let's get back to Kurt Bloch. In my opinion, the way this guy leads his life and plays his music should be a touchstone for all of us who get too caught up in trying to label art. This dude has never changed his tune. The Fastbacks will go down as a band that kept its integrity, if nothing else. Kurt is still a guy who gets real, real excited about new music (or any music for that matter, he's a walking encyclopedia!). He works at Gibson guitars because, well, he loves guitars! His new band, Thee Sgt. Major III are killer because they are oh so obviously 'in it' for the pure love of playing live and writing songs.

Kurt never took much stock in labeling anything, that's for sure. He is a one-of-a-kind, the kind of talent that makes you forget all about what should or shouldn't be 'correct' in the music industry today.

That's my two-cents, anyway.

Topics: Duff McKagan

Duff McKagan: MALL is a Four-Letter Word!

Posted yesterday at 7:56 pm by Duff McKagan

I must start this week's topic off by clarifying that I DO love the Christmas season. I was just now proof reading this text and it struck me that I come off as a bit of a pointless complainer here. Oh well..I'm not a Scrooge, just a reluctant consumer i guess.

I absolutely HATE to shop. There are not many worse ways to put me in a crappy mood than to actually have to go to a mall and browse. I know I'm not alone in this (right, gentlemen?). However, as many of you know, I live with 3 females (my wife and 2 daughters); the mall has become an entrenched battlefield in my existence. Ah, but the Christmas season is here and I will have to put on my armor and charge the enemy.

Some of my earliest memories are of me shopping with my mom. With all 7 of my older brothers and sisters either in school or out of the house altogether, my mom would have to take me along when she went to get one of us new jeans or tennis shoes. I remember playing under the racks of clothes and getting lost. I remember the day care at the Bon Marche downtown. I remember getting dizzy from all of the different colors and fragrances. I remember getting hot and sweaty. One of my first independent thoughts was: "When I grow up, I will NEVER go shopping!"

When I first met my wife, I would grit my teeth through a cheery smile to shop with her. This is one of the things that new couples do. I was a bit sheepish at first to tell her of my shopping phobia. Somewhere around a year-and-a-half into our relationship, I had to finally tell her that shopping just wasn't my 'bag'. We has just gone into some sale at Nordstrom's and it was a fuckin' maelstrom of mostly females, frantically vying for the same low-priced pashmina or some other such trifle. Suddenly, it all came back, the dizziness, the perfume-induced nausea, the suffocating clothes racks. I told my wife that I had to get out of there.

"Honey, I just think you are over-reacting," she replied. I think she was just bummed out that she'd just lost her shopping pal (me). Well, as chance would have it, the two of us were watching the news a few weeks later and a story came on about people just like me. The story highlighted the fact that a phenomenon was gripping America. It afflicted mostly men and this shopping semi-paralysis was even backed by scientific testing. I was not alone! There were other people who just hate to shop. My wife looked at me and said, "Well, whaddya know?" I had my out at last!

I could not be more blessed to have 2 girls, let's get that straight right away. This is not about me wishing for a boy to even things out a bit at my house. I've taught our dog Buckley how to sit next to me when a Seahawks game is on (although he has oddly been throwing up right in front of the TV as of late. I've considered joining him.). No, being a dad oftentimes means to go beyond oneself. For a parent to two girls, self-sacrifice is key, especially if one has a shopping phobia such as me. I've had to 'reach deep inside' and do some serious soul-searching about my current predicament. Either I start to alienate myself from my family and become the grumbling grouch in the corner, or, I can join in and celebrate in the age-old girl pastime...the mall.

The girls know what I mean when I say "Hey, let's go to the blah." The 'blah' is my nickname for the mall. Every mall, every place you go seems to have the exact same stores: Gap, Foot Locker, Williams-Sonoma, Claire's, Victoria's Secret, etc. It's all 'blah' to me. How in God's name is going to the same damn stores in every town in this country the least bit entertaining? Well, to the rest of my family...it is. If you happen to see me at a mall, please engage me in some sort of intellectual conversation (fart tennis, anyone?). I slowly die at the vine at these places. But my girls are happy, so I suppose this is just part of a husband and father's duty. Fuck! I go less and less these days. (I am getting REAL good at coming up with some sort of 'band business' that urgently needs attention!)

I guess at this point, I've given you all a fairly good look into my life-at least as far as where I stand on shopping.

Well, now Christmas is here and I DO try to brave at least a part of a day to go out and get my wife's present. She starts dropping hints sometime around Thanksgiving. It is up to me to try and decipher these hints into something that I can shop for. This year, it was a pair of designer shoes. "No problem," I thought to myself. A simple and quick in- and -out of a Macy's and I am home free. Killer!

This last Saturday I prepared myself for quick trip to get the shoes. My oldest daughter asked to go along to help, and I was glad for the company. When we entered the women's shoe department at Macy's however, I was met by a scene of a sort of heightened panic one might associate with the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. I found out quick that a women's shoe department on a Saturday (and a few weeks shy of the holidays!) is not a place for the faint of heart, and definitely not a place for me. There were shoes and boots scattered EVERYWHERE. The looks on peoples' faces were fierce and SCARY. I had to keep pulling my daughter out of harm's way. These women at this place were seemingly completely out of their collective minds! This was not going to work for me.

Lucky for me, I have a few 'go to' people that are willing to help when a situation like this arises. I called my wife's good friend, Nancy, right then and there. I explained to her the situation and she talked me off the ledge. Nancy is a seasoned shopper who had some great tips for me. She told me to just call the store, tell them what you want, give them your credit card number, and they would hand deliver the item right to my house! I did just that . And what do you know? It worked just like she said. Done.

My days at the mall are now all but done. Well, at least until after Christmas. Right, girls?

Duff McKagan: We've Got It Good (Food)

Posted yesterday at 10:40 pm by Duff McKagan

I'll preface this column by saying first off I realize these days we all may have a bit less to spend, but secondly, we must at least try to spend a little dough, in our town, on our local vendors.

I am fortunate enough to be able to travel quite a bit. Of course when I do, I must eat. Some cities (like New York and London) have absolutely wonderful choices for good food. Most other cities may have a few good restaurants, but as a whole, suck. We are blessed in this city to have a veritable plethora of really, really good dining spots. You don't have to be independently wealthy to dine out here either; Seattle is the king of cozy, affordable neighborhood fare. I am now going to highlight a few places that I dig. Hey, I am certainly not a food critic, just a dude with a couple of tips...and a column!

My wife and I went and got our Christmas tree this past weekend at a tree lot on 75th and Northeast 25th (by Eckstein Middle School). On our way back, we stopped off at Top Pot Doughnuts on Northeast 25th. Now my wife is a true connoisseur of all things pastry; she now swears that this is the "hands down best" doughnut place she has EVER been to. Loaded's producer, Martin Feveyear, on the other hand, swears by Mighty O's doughnuts near Greenlake. I have tasted both and am quite sure that you couldn't go wrong with either, so have fun and try both...it's cheap and they both have great coffee!

I do all of my recording in Wallingford, and therefore spend a ton of time in that neighborhood. As a result, I have found a few really nice lunch and dinner spots. Erwin's is a great spot on North 40th (four blocks east of Wallingford Ave.) that serves a mean latte while serving up great soup and the best Chinese chicken salad that I have ever had, all at an affordable price and with a great vibe. Sea-Thai on 45th (just west of Dick's) is a new find for me. Four of us had a dinner of excellent Thai food for about $40...with appetizers. Chutney's Indian Cuisine on 45th (across from the Wallingford QFC) is possibly the best Indian food in town. I think that along this stretch of 45th, either a restaurant has got to be outstanding or it will be gone. The competition is just too good. If you are in the area and want Pho, try Pho on the Ave (on University Ave.), cheap as it gets.

Barbecue has long been a favorite of mine, and I would always look forward to playing gigs in Texas, Kansas City, or anywhere in the South. Seattle could never even remotely be considered a top destination for ribs and beans until now: Slim's Last Chance way down past the Starbucks HQ on First Ave. is some of the best barbecue that I have eaten anywhere (but beware of the sassy older waitresses and be careful when you order the "3 Way" from them!). Ro Ro's barbecue on Stone Way in east Fremont is another excellent choice for the ribs and chicken...and sass. (The "hostess" once told me she had a crush on one of the guys in my band. When I asked which guy, she retorted with "The one who wears his little sister's pants!"...priceless.) Both of these joints are REAL affordable, and I guarantee the quality is second to none. Thank me later. A good side note: The beans at both of these places make great ammunition for fart tennis action. And just when you said, "Duff. You've done enough for us already!"

For those of us who have kids and therefore need a high-mess-without-the-guilt place to eat, may I suggest two: The ever-classic Ivar's fish bar off of Northlake Ave. on South Lake Union is of course great. The seagulls will pick up any unnecessary scraps left on the ground. (My brother Matt worked there in the 80's, and witnessed a car come off the I-5 bridge and crash in front of the place. You sick motherfuckers can go down and perhaps wait for that to happen again.) World Wrapps in U-Village has got everything from smoothies to "Thai Bowls"...and you clean up after yourself (and your kids).

Living in L.A. for so long certainly has had its drawbacks (REALLY bad traffic, smog, assholes, fake motherfuckers, real motherfuckers, entertainment attorneys, and more smog and assholes), but one thing is top-shelf there...Mexican food. Seattle never really got it quite right over the years (although Wenatchee and Yakima most certainly did). Well, this has also changed now that Senor Moose on Leary Way in Ballard has appeared. This place does traditional Mexican like I have never quite had. I have a niece from just outside Mexico City, and she swears that Senor Moose has got it right...real, real good. Get there early, as they don't take reservations and there is always a line.

There is a place in my neck of the woods that my wife Susan swears by and goes to any chance she has. Pair on Northeast 55th St. is (I guess) uniquely European. She can't quite explain where the food is traditional from, other than it's a "sort of Swiss Alps" type of food. She said that their potatoes au gratin are absolutely "sick," and that if I were to write on cozy neighborhood joints, I should include this place and it should be at the top. These past few sentences bear witness as a big ol' "yes, dear" from me. I will tell you that she goes to the Duchess Tavern across the street to have a couple of glasses of wine to wash down the aforementioned potatoes....then we get our "jiggy" on. Was that too much information? Seriously though, my wife lived in France and Italy and knows from where she talks when it comes to food!

OK, so now you maybe have a few more bucks to spend after a relative cut you some weird "guilt check" for Christmas (an old aunt of mine did this one year for me; I didn't see what was wrong with me wearing a tuxedo while she insisted I call my dog "Grandpa" while she took a shower...but I digress?). My all-time favorite "fancy" place to eat in Seattle is Wild Ginger on Second Ave. downtown. Order the scallops and you will see what I mean when I say that this place flat-out kicks some serious gastronomic ass. I think it is kind of a "pick-up joint" on weekends, but who gives a crap...it's killer.

So that's it from me. I hope some of you get a chance to at least try one of these places. If it sucks, they must have changed owners, or the cook is smokin' weed.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2008/12/weve_got_it_good_food.php

Duff McKagan: Merry Christmas

Posted Dec. 23 at 9:53 pm by Duff McKagan

Life just seems to get too damn busy sometimes. I try to take a deep breath in the morning and not take myself too seriously. I try not to get too caught up in all of the crap that just doesn't matter. My work is very important to me, but at what cost? We all deal with things we'd rather not at our workplace. Sure, we try to shake it all off our boot-soles before we come home, but do we succeed? My family is most important, but do I give them enough of my time? Enough of my patience? This is the time of year that I like to slow it all down and take stock of my year and my life. This is also the time of year that I get real thankful for the health and well-being of my kids. When I hear a story like the one I am about to share, I just want to kick myself for "sweating the small stuff" . . . life is indeed a treasured thing.

In Seattle, I live a mere stone's throw from Children's Hospital and Ronald McDonald House (across the street from Children's). Ronald McDonald House is a place for families to stay while their sick children are getting treatment. Most of these families have come from outside the area, as Children's is arguably the top pediatric hospital in the West. Most of these families have also given up everything in trade for the healthcare of their child. It is also often the last stop. RMH provides a roof and other measures of support, but make no mistake, it is not a place with frills. I have met a few of these parents over the years only because I live in the area. (Last summer I met a single dad from Yakima who was completely heartbroken and alone while his 9-year-old daughter was getting treated for cancer. I don't know what has happened with them, but I think about them often.) Living so close to RMH reminds you of things you don't want to think about, ever.

One of my sisters has worked at Sam's Club for the past 24 years. She is one of those people who intuitively uses great economy when speaking about others' lives; when she finally does have something to tell, it is always of substance. Two weeks ago, she told me of a newer employee at the Seattle Sam's Club whose name is Roger Linn. Roger and his wife have five kids and have moved here from Montana. Their oldest daughter, Ashley, has leukemia and is being treated with aggressive chemotherapy at Children's Hospital. The Linns reside at Ronald McDonald House so that they can all be here while Ashley gets treatment. This is their second stint in Seattle.

Back in 2004, Ashley was experiencing a lot of pain, but her parents were told by a doctor that she was only being "rebellious" and that the pain was in fact all in her head. After seeing a few more doctors, she was found to have leukemia (cancer of the white blood cells) and underwent five blood transfusions. Things got bad fast. On Christmas Eve 2004, the Linns flew to Seattle to get emergency treatment for Ashley at Children's, and set up their first residency at RMH. Roger kept his job and their house in Montana, making as many trips as he could out here. Word got out in Montana that the Linn household was often vacant and the house was robbed (everything being stolen). Ashley, meanwhile, suffered full paralysis.

Ashley now had to deal not only with chemotherapy for leukemia, but also physical therapy for paralysis. Ashley's illness, however, went into remission and the paralysis ebbed. While she still suffered tremors in the right side of her body, leukemia was out of the picture, and the family moved back to Montana. (Ashley taught herself to write with her left hand).

I wish this was the end of the story, but sadly it isn't. Ashley's fight with leukemia is back, and the Linns are back. Roger decided that this time he wanted the whole family together. He has been a longtime Sam's Club employee in Montana, and there was an opening at the store here. Roger's paychecks go to pay the mortgage back in Montana and little else. The Linns are very grateful for RMH. I just can't imagine the stress that must fill that place, living among other families with dire concerns, many of whom have given up everything in pursuit of health for their broken child. On top of all this, Ashley is now experiencing tremors in her left side too.

When my sister told me this story, I instantly thought of writing about it for Christmas, and leaving an address to which we could all send a little money for the Linns. When I told Roger about my idea, he plainly stated "There are a lot more people that have it worse off than us." While he was more than happy to talk to me about Ashley (and the rest of his kids!), he directed me to the side of this story where hope sits, not despair. His steady voice depicts a man whose family has cleared the clutter out of their lives and are now focused on the important stuff. . . each other.

It is now Christmas Eve, and people are scurrying to get home or buy that last-minute present. Other people will be going out to get shit-faced at some bar. This is life and we are all in it. I too will be rushing around and focusing on what "I"(ve) got to get done for "Me"?although this year I will take a second to pray and meditate for the Linns. Maybe writing this article will inspire me to finally take the plunge and donate some of my time to Ronald McDonald House. This article does not really have a point or tidy conclusion, but hopefully it will inspire some of us to gather up an extra coat and some blankets for a homeless shelter or buy a turkey for a mission. Maybe we could just take a second to think about others that may have it worse off than us. Be safe tonight and Merry Christmas.

Random Thoughts (and experiences) of 2008

Posted yesterday at 7:59 pm by Duff McKagan

I really don't have a "tidy conclusion of 2008" column anywhere in me. Really, I think I ceaselessly strive for my life to have soft edges as opposed to sharp corners, but it just never works out that way. Instead of actually writing some sort of year-end wrap up, I thought of maybe just blurting out some random things that this year has perhaps influenced in my thought processes.

?Don't smoke crack: This stuff, while maybe getting you off for a few moments, really wreaks havoc on those around you. Enough said on that.

?Write a weekly column: Especially one where you may get instant feedback from readers. This experience for me has been nothing short of spectacular. Firstly, coming up with a weekly topic that others may find interesting is tougher than it may seem, but has kept me on my toes?stimulating, I should say. Secondly, reading feedback to a point (or NON-point!) you are trying to get across really lets me into the mind of others... I especially like the hecklers. The Internet is a place where most of us can remain faceless and shameless!

?Call instead of text someone (better yet, meet for a fucking coffee! OMG): This past year has been "the year of the text" for me. I must agree that texting someone is generally OK, but only if you also TALK to this person (LMAO). I have seen people whom I have known for a long time become socially retarded as a direct result of relying on text-messaging to do all of their bidding. I do believe (IMO) that our younger generation may be headed toward some serious social difficulties as a consequence of this technological advancement. :-) Some of my friends have increasingly gotten better at communicating via text or e-mail, while their people skills have decreased at the same rate.

?Did you guys know there was a members-only sex club in Seattle? Loaded went down to check out a rehearsal place last weekend. The practice place was kind of tucked away in a cozy spot somewhere between, let's say, the Fisherman's Terminal and Safeco. While we were inside talking to the owners, they let us know that there was a "sex club" next door and to not be freaked out by all the cross-dressing semi-truck drivers coming in or out of that place. Sounds like I found the perfect place for me and the Loaded fellas to celebrate New Year's!!

?Go climb a mountain: Well, that is my goal for this next year, anyway. I was offered a spot to climb Rainier for this coming July and I just may finally do it! That fuckin' thing has been looking at me since I can remember.

?Require politicians to read world history before they commit us to war and such: If old George W. had simply read a few history books about tribal warfare in the Middle East, he may have thought twice before stating that "The Iraqi people are perfectly able to govern themselves." Tribal warfare has been going on in that region since before the time of Jesus, and Saddam was just one of a long line of despots who have ruled with an iron fist in that part of the world. I do agree that Saddam and his sons were wicked bastards and should have gotten everything that was coming their way, I just wish a wider berth had been given to the IDEA of a mixed-religion Iraqi senate with real power back before we decided to invade. There was lip-service paid to the defeated Iraqi army that they would have work?that never happened either, and those legions got pissed waiting around, etc. . .

?Give Peace a Chance: Is anybody with me?!

?Don't hear about Paris Hilton and the rest of the Hollywood brat-pack at all this next year: Again, is anybody with me?

?Seattle sports teams on the rise! Well, there is actually nowhere our teams can go BUT up after this past dismal season of darkness. Think of it like this: Get the Seahawks back in the playoffs (totally doable in our crappy division). Get the Mariners in wild-card position (or get us fans to believe that they could get there in yet another year). Get the Huskies to beat ANYBODY! If we achieve any of these things, we will be BACK!

?Seattle is voted Most Literate City in America: This poses a most obvious question: What in the hell is a guy like me doing with a column in the SEATTLE Weekly if this is indeed true?!

?Go see the Gutter Twins: I was afforded this opportunity last September in Spain and it was an almost religious experience. It is not very often these days for me to be completely awed by a band or artist, so I am completely pleased when it finally does happen. The Gutter Twins are not something you can quite put your finger on musically, they are just equal parts "kick-ass" all the way around!

?Guilty(ish) Pleasure of '08: Shiny Toy Guns and their single "Ricochet."

?We elected a President with pecs: When is the last time women have been all aflutter over a politician? I came downstairs the other morning and my mother-in-law was freaking out over a news piece they had just run on Obama on the beach in Hawaii. I saw the piece a little later that same day. I think gym memberships probably saw a spike that day. This will serve as a notice to all you malcontent nations out there?our Prez can beat up yours!

?Don't parody Barack: He CAN kick your ass!

?Flight of the Conchords new season: I was never a TV watcher until TiVo and never generally gave much weight to wasting my time watching crappy swill (just think of all the Melrose Place, Friends, and Dynasty episodes I missed!). Nowadays, however, TiVo has got me hooked on all kinds of good TV: The Office, 30 Rock, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Dexter, and yes, a new season of Flight of the Conchords starting in a couple of weeks! Also, try out Spectacle with Elvis Costello on IFC.

?GO AWAY! That is, travel someplace for once in your life. Flights have never been cheaper and the dollar is still quite strong in South and Central America. Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro are two places I highly recommend. Hey, who could go wrong with two places in which the Ramones were bigger than Bon Jovi.

?Learn to put up a windmill: If you got the skills to build these new power providers, the "New Deal"-like programs of the Obama administration could keep you working for about the next 20 or 30 years. If that fails, try to get one of those bonuses they're passing around at those financial institutions that we all just bailed out.

?Look forward to the future! OK, so we all have borne witness to a pretty awful eight years of Bush policies. We have also all seen this credit crisis throw us into a recession that is shaping up to resemble the one we had back in the early '80's. (Seattle is in MUCH better shape now than it was then. Downtown looked like a ghost town.) It will probably get worse before it gets better, but it WILL get better. I am confident that President-elect Obama is "the smartest guy in the room" and will apply lessons from history. We have got the best guy for the job. Now, if he could do something to get an NBA team back here in Seattle.

Happy New Year!

Man's Best Friend

Posted today at 7:47 pm by Duff McKagan

by Duff McKagan

It is safe to assume that, for the most part, we all love dogs. I can reasonably make this statement because the movie Marley and Me has been sitting atop the "highest gross" list now for the second week in a row. I am a dog owner, and have been for pretty much my whole life. I would now like to share a few of my stories about my best friends.

Well, first off, I'd like to share a story about my daughters and the first movie that has actually made them cry. Over the holidays, my wife's mom comes and stays with us. This makes for good family time while also affording us a live-in babysitter. The other night we all went out to the movies. Susan and I went into one movie (Valkyrie) while her mom took the girls in to see Marley and Me. Valkyrie got out earlier, so we sat and waited for the girls. It was quite a sight to see almost everyone come out of that movie with tears streaming down their faces, including my little girls. We all went out to dinner afterwards, and their tears didn't stop for a good half-hour. For any parent reading this, you will understand the complexity of trying to soothe your child while also observing them trying to deal with a new emotion. I understood enough to let this kind of "play out" instead of trying some "parent" explanation.

I had a yellow Labrador like Marley. Her name was Chloe. I got her just after GN'R finished Appetite for Destruction (1987). She was a gentle pup, and as a result I did not get her spayed. . . I couldn't bring myself to have a doctor do ANYTHING that would hurt her. Well, girls will be girls, and Chloe was no different. I didn't actually know the difficulties a dog will go through when they are in heat. Chloe actually broke down a fence to get out one night to the loving pants of a large black stud (I found this out only later from the looks of the pups. I never actually met the dog, that coward). Chloe not only got pregnant, but she had a huge litter of 14 puppies! Luckily for me, my older brother Matt had just started teaching at a large school in an affluent part of L.A., and helped me out by asking the kids if anyone wanted a new puppy. Done deal?we found nice homes for all the little guys.

Chloe was different after that. She transformed from a lively young lass to a kindly port grandma almost overnight. Now instead of lunging into the pool headfirst, she would just walk to the first step and wade there all day long, coming out only for her meals and naps. She would look at me as if to say, "I've had my puppies and now it is time to rest." She became a world-class rester after that.

My life was in a lot of turmoil during those times, what with touring, drugs, alcohol, a bad marriage, and more drugs. Chloe never held me accountable for all my shortcomings during this period. She was always just there for me. I would come home from a tour and she would be faithfully waiting at the front door (she would get really sad when she saw me pack my bags to leave again). When I got sick in 1994, an illness that actually brought sobriety, Chloe nursed me through it and rejoiced at the new and sober me. When I met my would-be wife Susan a couple years later, Chloe told me to stick this one out. Chloe loved Susan. When Susan got pregnant, Chloe hung by her side the whole term, literally (they were inseparable). When our first daughter was born, Chloe would stick close to the baby wherever she was. Chloe made a new bed right underneath the crib, and would gently play ball with Grace as she became a toddler. It was truly an astounding thing to witness. By the time we had our second daughter, Chloe was really slowing down. The veterinarian said that she had cancer of the liver and would have to operate. It was my turn to nurse Chloe. The old girl tried to hang in there for me as her pain was obviously getting worse and worse. I told her that I would be OK. I had to put Chloe down on a fall Monday morning in 2001. It was one of the worst days of my life and I miss her.

There is a saying that "with death comes rebirth." Our family's K-9 "rebirth" started a few years after Chloe passed when Grace started to pine for a pup of her own. Susan and I shook our heads "no" for a couple of years, but finally relented two Christmases ago. We travel a ton as a family, as well as splitting time between L.A. and Seattle. I had crated Chloe on flights enough times to know that it is simply no fun for the pets that must endure the shock. If we were to get our kids a dog, we would have to get one that could fly with us in the cabin. Of course this brought with it a dilemma?I am not the biggest fan of little yip-yap dogs. We started to pore through dog breed books, feeling ourselves getting excited again about the prospect of a new little guy in the house (it was decided that we would get a boy dog to at least try and even out the estrogen/testosterone ratio in Casa McKagan). Every small-dog breed we found, though, always had a warning about small children and the breed. That is, until we found a picture of a breed that we fell instantly in love with?the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel: They were reported to be great with kids and they don't "yip"!

So the next step was to go online and find some breeders up near where Santa lives (my loving daughters do at times read this column). Has anybody seen the movie Best in Show? Well, I came to find out that most of that film was straight depiction, as opposed to farce. Breeders of small dogs are freaky for sure! I would get pictures of a respective puppy dressed in a pink dress that matched their owner's, for instance. One breeder didn't have a computer and didn't know anybody who did, but I was more than welcome to meet her at the K-mart just outside of Granite Falls and follow her the 60 miles back to her farm. Listen, lady, I saw Deliverance! Luckily for us, Santa pulled through on Christmas morning. The girls went wild with excitement and instantly named our new dog Buckley after one of Santa's elves that they had e-mailed with on NORAD's "Santa Tracker" Web site the day before (Christmas Eve).

The adventures of Buckley and our family have already become legend in the just 26 months that he has been on this planet. His demeanor is as perfect as his food-getting tactics are coy. His marathon sleeps have been clocked in at nothing short of epic (on his back, spread eagle). His flatulence? Walloping! But more than all of this is that this little dude has brought so much joy to us while demanding nothing. He really is the perfect dog.

At this point I could go on and on about dogs. I have owned four in my life. I can easily see, writing this piece, how John Grogan wrote a whole book about life with Marley. The 1400 words that the Weekly gives me are nowhere near enough for me to even START to describe one full story about either dog I've written about herein. Jeez, I didn't even get to mention my first dog of 17 years, Moo (I may just have to write more on dogs!). I think dogs make this world a better place, and perhaps some of you do too.

Duff McKagan: Out of the Armchair

Posted yesterday at 10:10 pm by Duff McKagan

A lot of you probably know my story. The drugs, the alcohol, the blah, blah, blah...boring right? Agreed. There are many different ways however, to come out of a funk like the one that I had. Some people go straight to rehab, some people church. Others to AA, and still many others...a pine box.

The severity of my particular malais placed me at a crossroads back in 1994 and luckily for me, fitness and a thirst for intellectual knowledge filled the void left by the blur of the 'fast lane'. So, for the last 14 or so years, I have tried to train my body like that of a professional athlete, at least how I THINK they train-although I have recently given up the dream of making the Seahawks (I did seriously contemplate going out for the Seattle U. baseball team when I was there recently. I could hear it now, "Now batting, 39 year-old rookie sophomore Duff McKagan"). My thirst for knowledge has lead me to a ton of reading, including many books on polar exploration (check out 'Endurance' by Alfred Lansing) and mountain climbing ('Touching the Void' by Joe Simpson).

I grew up in the Northwest and accordingly grew up doing my fair share of hiking. But hiking is NOT mountain climbing necessarily, and I've always wondered how I might stand up with crampons strapped to my feet and a 60-pound pack on my back?teeth to the wind and howling at the moon.

A few weeks back, a friend of mine asked if I would like to climb Tiger Mountain with him and another guy (I may reveal the names of these gentlemen in the upcoming months, but for now, they shall remain anonymous). Now, my friend is ridiculously fit and has been known to take the Seahawks secondary up Tiger for some ad hoc suffering (there was an article in the Times about my friend doing just this). I accepted my friends' offer to 'do' Tiger and he offered to pick me up at my house...at 5:30am. It was about 15 degrees up there that morning and it had been snowing all week and so there was no broken trail. With headlamps on, we proceeded up the mountain..FAST!

Now, I pride myself in being fit in a general sense. I work out pretty damn hard. I sweat like a 'whore in church' I am told- and that means that my cardio-vascular system is working pretty darn good..like a fuckin' Ferrari I tell myself. Or a broken down '71 Ford Maverick. I am telling you, just when I thought I could hang with the big boys, my friend set this pace up Tiger that tested EVERYTHING that I had inside of me. Where he looked like Robo-Cop, I looked like Jerry Lewis in the 'Nutty Professor'. Where he climbed with style, I was grabbing for branches and tearing shrubs out just to get a handhold. But finally we made it to the top and I was hooked.

At this point, friend #2 takes over for the downward trip...SPRINTING! If any of you have tried running down a VERY steep and VERY slippery mountain, you may know of what I speak when I say...this sucks. Not only were my legs burning to the core then from the actual run, but also 2 days later I could not even walk!

When my girls asked me why I was going to bed at 10 on New Year's Eve, I replied that I was getting up early to climb again. "But Daddy, they INJURED you last time". The 3 of us dudes climbed Tiger again on New Year's Day. On the summit this time though we stopped to actually talk for a minute. The idea of a climb up Mt. Rainer was thrown around with my name included. "Aren't you sick of just LOOKING at that thing Duff? Isn't it time to climb it?" I nodded yes, not really thinking of the perplexity of getting ready for the whole thing.

I have a friend down here in LA whom some of you may know from the Discovery show 'Everest'. He was dubbed 'Biker' Tim for the show. This guy is straight-up hardcore. Tim got in a real bad motorcycle accident a few years ago that required the surgeon's to put a steel cage around his lower spine and to fuse his left ankle. Tim somehow took this as his sign to start his career in climbing and has climbed Everest since as well as now guiding clients of his own up gnarly peaks around the world. I made the mistake of telling Tim that I may be climbing Rainer this summer. "Killer man, you can be my training partner down here in California". Tim is preparing to climb the Lhotse face next to Everest in a couple of months. I did mention to you readers that I have only climbed Tiger twice thus far, right?

I am a true alcoholic, and as such, I have never really backed down from anything. Whether it is good for me or bad, I want it ALL and I want it NOW! Tim and I did our first 'training' climb last week. Tim told me that we would be going up Mt. Baldy and I chuckled as we drove to the mountaineering store the day before. Anything in Southern California has got to be a cakewalk compared to Tiger, right? As I was getting fitted out for boots (a REAL bad idea the day before a climb), the salesman asked where we were going. When he informed me that Baldy was over 10,000 feet and the third highest mountain in California, I felt my butt pucker just a smidgeon. Oh shit, I've done it again.

The next morning I went to pick him up. Tim assured me that everything would be fine and that the crampons and rope that we were to bring were only precautionary " at best" he said. He pulled out two big climbing packs and filled mine with all the heavy stuff..well, at least it felt that way. On our way to the mountain, he explained some of the finer points of climbing in the snow and ice. When we arrived, he demonstrated a 'self arrest' with his ice axe. I didn't really pay attention because I DIDN'T HAVE AN ICE AXE TO ARREST MYSELF WITH! (Note to self: get one of those.)

In the first 10 minutes of our climb, I could feel the blisters rising on the back of each heel. After an hour, my feet were so raw that I couldn't actually feel the pain THERE anymore. I COULD however feel the pain everywhere else...but we tread on in a silence only broken by my wheezing and Tim's Ipod blaring TLC's 'Waterfall' through his ear buds.

A very interesting thing happened about 4 hours into the climb; everything turned to sheer ice..and JUST as we got on a really steep part of the mountain. One slip here and you are curtains. Tim told me to stop (I was frozen with fear as it was!). Tim put his crampons on and gingerly slipped around to where I was, he then told me to sit down. He put on my crampons for me (I had never worn them before, remember, two times up Tiger?) Tim looked me straight in the eyes and said that this pretty much separates the men from the boys and I wondered where I fit in in that equation. Once I found purchase with those crampons though, I practically flew up that mountain and out of the 'danger zone'. Tim held me back from summiting by 300 feet, saying that we would lose daylight. I could feel a little of what it must feel like to want to keep climbing no matter the risk. I turned as he instructed and we made it down safely, albeit in the dark. I WILL be back to summit.

If you see some tall, freaky, tattooed guy with a weighted backpack, climbing hills in your neighborhood, that could be me training for my next climb. Or, it could just be some unlucky bastard who looks like me!

Duff McKagan: I'm All For a New Era of Responsibility

Posted yesterday at 7:03 pm by Duff McKagan

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility."

? President Barack Obama, Jan. 20, 2009

These words, spoken by President Obama on Tuesday, have thus far made me walk a little taller, taking stock of where this new weight of responsibility sits best in my gait. The air of change has been palatable in my family, on the streets, from city to city, and, I believe, the rest of the world.

From where I stand, my family appears to be what one may envision to be the average American family. My daughters are at the age when they are starting to be aware of what is going on in the world. This past election was a fun and inspiring ride for us McKagans, and Tuesday's Inaugural was much anticipated. My girls counted down the days and wondered aloud what the Obama girls would be wearing at the ceremony. My wife thinks Michelle Obama is the coolest and has just finished a biography on her. I must say I feel pretty good about having the Obama family as "example setters" for my wife and two girls. For me? I aspire to do whatever President Obama needs of me. I certainly couldn't have said this about any previous president (Clinton came into office when I was, let's say, retarded by outside substances).

As I watched the CNN broadcast of the Inauguration, many different strong images filled the TV screen: Dick Cheney addled to a wheelchair and about to take a VERY uncomfortable limo ride with his adversary and new VP, Joe Biden (I would have loved to be a "fly on the wall" there!). Obama's new Presidential car (dubbed "the Beast"), surrounded by the omnipresent Secret Service. Bush's last walk from the White House highlighted the ridiculousness of him even being there AT ALL! Two million people attending the ceremony on the National Mall gave weight to the importance of a needed sea-change.

Obama's speech was again a work of brilliance, even "in the midst of a crisis now understood." At a time of economic downturn, our troops abroad and this most recent crisis in the Middle East, Obama addressed the "gathering clouds and raging storms...sapping our confidence." He also rather pointedly scoffed at the Bush administration and the wearing-thin of its political "dogma... rejecting as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." Pretty heady and ballsy stuff indeed. Obama talked about global warming and talked TO world leaders who blame their problems on the West. I think it was just as important HOW he worded the things that he said. Obama's articulation of speech not only ensures us voters that we have the "smartest guy in the room," it also has a manner of steadfastness that will, I believe, garner respect from other world leaders ready to perhaps pounce on a weakness.

I received a couple of startlingly different e-mails from two friends after the speech. "GOBAMA!" friend #1 says, "What a great fucking speech. I love the toughness and emphasis on acting like a grown-up. And it's such a relief to again have a president who is not afraid to be articulate in his speeches." The second friend went in another direction completely. "Eeek!" he stated. "Lofty emotionalism with no depth. Going further into debt to stave off debt? I don't need pep rallies; I need to know exactly how you're going to manage our many crises. Government trying to fix problems that they created is just ironic...RON PAUL in 2012!"

I could have pointed out to friend #2 that an Inauguration is not the place that a president would actually state his exact plan to manage "our many crises," and that it is actually more of a "pep rally" than anything else. Also, Roosevelt actually saved this country just 70 years ago by creating more initial debt with his New Deal.

The difference between these two e-mails I think highlights more about the way we choose to look at the future than maybe any facts that we have to go on about it. We have some pretty hearty work in front of us as a nation. It is our right to criticize our politicians, for sure, but perhaps right now we would all be better off if we tried to see the "right" in Obama's plan before we just shoot them down or go chanting "Ron Paul in 2012!".

I for one have been an Obama supporter since day number one. He is a guy that is just plain smart in my opinion. People who have read my column have criticized me about my support being too "blind," and maybe they are right. But I have never seen our country in such a hard spot as it is now, and I think only intelligence will get us out and move us forward and upward. Intellect will be able to understand monetary and fiscal complexities. Intellect also knows the history of age-old tribal warfare in the Middle East. Intellect understands that we are in a global economy while also realizing that we have mountains of economic troubles within our borders. Hey, Obama even sees that college football needs a playoff system put in place. Now THAT is smart!

As a father, I feel a bit more secure today with Obama as our President. As a world traveler, I feel a bit more dignified to be an American. As a citizen of the world, I am a bit more proud of what humanity is capable of. America may indeed be united as it never has been before.

When my girls got home from school on Tuesday, my youngest went straight to her room. Upon my checking on her, she informed me that she was writing a letter to President Obama and another to Michelle Obama. But the important one was to be addressed to Malia and Sasha Obama. "I am going to tell THEM what their Dad should do as President." Don't tell the rest of the world this, but Daddies will do what their daughters ask of them, and that is for sure.

One More Reason to Read Playboy's Articles ... Me!

Posted yesterday at 10:52 pm by Duff McKagan

If someone were to tell me 5 months ago that I'd be busy thinking up things to write about on a weekly basis, I would have actually been happy to hear it. As of this week, I will not only be continuing my Seattle Weekly commitment, but also starting a new endeavor as a financial columnist at Playboy.com.

From my experience, once you are pegged as a 'rock guy', people just assume that you are either brain-dead or off hi-flying on a private jet with hookers and cocaine. While I have definitely been guilty of both of the before-mentioned traits-most of the time, my life these days is just kind of simple and book-filled. Writing is something that I found a fondness for when I attended Seattle University and took a particular English course taught by visiting poet, Sam Greene.

Some of you may probably rightly accuse my writing style of being a tad sophomoric or conversational. My thought process thus far in my writing just goes straight to the computer keyboard without the guide of an outline or notes. I will edit as I go and don't usually read the whole thing until it is up on the Weekly site. Brian Barr and Chris Kornelis (my esteemed editors at SW) gave me two simple guidelines before my first column, "Make it seem like you are talking to a friend at a bar and make it 1400 words". Sometimes it is the small things that people say to you that will guide your next 10 years. Brian's 'bar-talk' advise will be one of those small things for me.

How the hell is it that I will to be writing about money matters for Playboy? Well, over the last few years, I have been doing more and more TV and print interviews regarding some faction of finance. It started in 2004 when a writer for some music newspaper asked me about my experience going to business-school after my career with GNR. That interview in turn prodded other writers to ask me about money issues within the music biz. From there, PBS's 'Frontline' interviewed me about the 'valuation of a rock band' and the cork was officially off the top of the bottle as far as me being an ersatz 'go to' guy for anyone looking for financial insight from inside the music industry. Sometimes I DO wish more artists would go to business school just so I wouldn't always be getting the calls to do these interviews.

I do find how money works rather fascinating. Adam Smith, the main person looked at to be the founder of capitalism, was a simple but brilliant economist who had particular ideas on how a free market would take care of itself. The theory of every little niche being filled in the marketplace seems too 'free' to actually work...but it has for the most part over the last 240 years. This is a statement made free of politics by the way.

I think part of my mission statement for Playboy may be to perhaps try and shed some light and maybe even bring down some of the criminals on Wall St. Wouldn't that be cool? Maybe be a voice for the people- one that can't be bought (well, no one has ever actually tried to bribe me, but I'll let you know if they do!). The talking heads on the financial news networks also bother me. Always trying to be smarter than the next guy, using big and needless words and terminology so that they can watch themselves at home on their TiVo and gloat. Most of these shows do nothing more than a sort of "if it bleeds, it leads" type of sensationalism. This of course promotes only panic, stress, depression, and fear. Poppycock if you ask me. (As an aside; I would never actually use the word 'poppycock' in a bar room conversation but I couldn't wait any longer to use it. It IS a great word).

If any of you are like me, I didn't know squat about financial 'vehicles' or what the term 'financial vehicle' actually meant until I was 32. Why would I? And by the time I was 32, I was too afraid too ask anyone for fear of coming off as a buffoon. What I didn't realize then is that really no one else knew what any of this financial terminology meant either (except for CPA's, lawyers, and stockbrokers-and my brother Mark who is freakishly smart at everything). I think it would be cool to clarify some of this mess while at my column at Playboy. Just some no-nonsense plain talk about things that can usually get real confusing. In this scary time of grave financial woe, we all need to look out for each other and ourselves.

One thing is for sure; in these times of a drastically changing and unforeseen financial landscape, I will be learning as I go and only hope not to fail in front of everyone or let anyone down. I know that I will be learning a ton as I go. Hopefully some of you will come along with me as I stumble through this new landscape If anyone has any great ideas for the name of my Playboy column, please let me know.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/01/same_crap_different_angle.php

Seattle: The Nation's Most Literate City (and Other Ramblings)

Posted yesterday at 9:14 pm by Duff McKagan

Sometimes it just seems the right time to ramble. I try and have a clear and concise topic here every week, but alas, it cannot always be so. Hopefully, my logic can be followed here today. But if not, I am sure some of you will let me know.

The sad news that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer may soon be a thing of the past took our area by surprise in the last month or so. Is this just another sign and result of a recession? Are we all moving toward the Internet and TV more and more for our intake of news? Or is it a 'perfect storm' of these factors and other inputs?

A friend e-mailed me the other day and she had just been in Seattle on a business trip (we both belong to the same online book club that tackles some rather heavy tomes such as Norman Mailer's Executioner's Song). In our book club, we have had discussions about how Seattle has again and again ended up on top of national 'most literate city' lists.

My friend was curious and perhaps a little appalled that one of our area newspapers may very well be closing down and asked me why I thought this was. The easy answer, of course, is the recession. Advertising dollars dollars are drying up and we consumers are not as quick to throw quarters at tactile news when we can perhaps just go to their Web sites and get the news for free. Or, has print news just simply lost its luster? Has the information-age replaced the printing press and it's product?

The fact is the P-I has been in trouble for quite a few years. Without The Seattle Times' support of shared infrastructure withing the JOA, the P-I may have folded a couple of years back. And while on THIS particular topic; it is seemingly apparent that many major city newspapers are having some serious problems. The LA Times just laid off a truck load of workers, and the Detroit Free Press is also going down the crapper. But, I'll get back to this in a second..

Seattle has always seemed well, smarter than most places I visit (London and New York are also smart seeming places to me). I've never delved into the criteria that make up a top-lister in the 'literate city' category and don't really care that much about it either. I do know that my friends and family up here do in fact read a ton. People I meet in coffee shops around town are very apt to make small talk, like anywhere else. But the small talk here will likely include something about the latest book that either of you may have read. Books are perceived as nice companions as opposed to a nerdy habit.

I grew up here. Reading books and making music in basements is how we while away our rainy seasons in the Pacific Northwest. As a result, we are proficient in both disciplines. Art and literature make for a gentler and more humane populous, in my opinion, and that is perhaps why people from out of town remark that 'everyone is so nice' in Seattle. Brains also seem to beat out looks in the aphrodisiac department up here. Smart people get their fair share of ass in Seattle. Sweet! I am obviously on a ramble now.

Another fact of why I think print newspapers are on the decline is that we are on the Internet more than ever (as I stated before). Personally, I for one read The Seattle Times online. Of course, the Seattle Weekly provides me with the other entire intellectual stimulus that I would ever require..but seriously. We are all on our computers ALL of the time. I was surprised last week when I went to look at the 'comments' page of my column, not only by the overwhelming response from Thursday's article, but also by the fact that it generated a lot of talk on the social media site Digg. A lot of you probably know what this is, but I did not. So if you 'Digg' this column, all of the sudden, other people that don't necessarily read the Weekly but are part of the Digg community are in touch with what I am doing. Except the heading is not mine but an inane 'Ex-GNR Bassist Knows How To Use A Typewriter' or some such malarkey. Krist Novoselic and I are getting a bunch of 'play' over there at Digg. My point is that news articles and op/ed columns don't just stay where they were intended but almost simultaneously spread out all over the web. Furthermore, if I even use a key phrase like 'Led Zeppelin', this too will get picked up and transported. It all seems so dirty. Now that I think of it, maybe I will just go to the corner and pick up a good old print newspaper for the untaintedness of it all.

So now, this brings the topics of print newspapers and reading perfectly together for next week. My column will also be found in the print version on the Valentine's Day issue of SW. Dating advice from me is what they wanted? and you all shall receive. Until then...

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/02/seattle_the_nations_most_liter.php

Duff?s Dating Tips for Men

Plus a little advice for the ladies as well, from the former Guns N? Roses bassist.

By Duff McKagan

Published on February 10, 2009 at 8:40pm

Dating, really, is a catch-22 for men. Look, it's simple; dudes want to get laid. It goes back to our instincts. It is a male's biological function on this planet to impregnate as many females as possible, therefore ensuring population and carrying on our species. Flash-forward to a first date: A guy must fight this urge and remain calm and almost aloof. On top of this, if you really like the girl, hooking up on the first date is usually not the best indication that she may be "the one"... in my opinion, anyway. So herein lies the contradiction for men: "I really, really like her, and I really want to 'do' her, but I hope it doesn't happen tonight!"

So before you head out for that next first date, or Saturday's big date, here are 10 dating tips?bits of wisdom, if you will?that I've amassed during my colorful times?remembered or otherwise.

1. Become a rocker. This occupation helped me get through the awkward "dating years," as I really never dated at all until I got sober. Those early years were basically filled with post-gig hookups or some other male-female interaction as a result of dark, loud, booze-filled haunts. Of course, I was pretty much hammered all the time until I was 30, and experienced TWO bad (but thankfully short) marriages! This poses a most obvious question: What the hell am I doing writing THIS column? Hey, don't be so quick to judge! I don't really remember those years, so it's almost as if they didn't count, right? I look at my life in sobriety as an almost wholly different existence than the years prior.

2. Get sober. Damn, what a scary prospect my first sober date was. I really didn't know how to act. What was I supposed to talk about if I wasn't yet even comfortable in my own skin? What if I got food on my face? I know I wouldn't even have cared before. So many things were going through my head that I probably came off as some sort of weird loser with no social skills. Those first dates after I got sober were some of the most horrible, failure-filled times in my life. "Hooking up" was definitely the last thing on my mind. But of course, in the end, sobriety, and the choices that I make when sober, are really and truly mine. Now my life is filled with all of the good things that I initially thought were going to happen back when I was a teenager. Hey, it may have taken a while, but I have, at last, a lot of solid love in my life.

3. To the ladies: Make your man feel important. Men are pretty simple. We require very little, in fact, to make us happy. I think we feel more vital and "hot" when we are successful in whatever our particular field or job may be. This probably comes from our instincts as the hunter and provider. When you bring "food back to the cave," you are appreciated and important. I think relationships fail more often when this mutual appreciation breaks down or is ignored.

4. To the fellas: Open the door for your date, especially if it's to your bedroom. Old-fashioned values and courteousness never go out of style. Pulling the chair out at the restaurant is also a classy move. Opening car doors and shedding your jacket for a woman when it is nippy are two things that should become habit for you guys out there. Your date will appreciate these gentlemanly gestures and she will never tire of them.

5. The three A's: Attention, Affection, and Appreciation. These are three things that women crave, and that we men don't easily or naturally dole out. The "three A's" are applicable in matters big and small, and shouldn't be tossed off as unimportant kowtowing to your chick. She will respond in a positive manner, and that is good for you both. It helps if you actually mean the things you say, but it's not always necessary. Here are two examples, one good and one bad:

Bad: "Hey you, you are HOT! [Attention.] Give me a hug! [Affection.] That felt good! [Appreciation.]"

Good: "Are you wearing new lip gloss? Let me kiss you! I like it!"

Actually, both of these would work, and neither of them are stellar, but you get the idea.

6. Wear something sexy underneath. My Seattle Seahawks (Sea Gals) cheerleader lingerie had usually been my "go to" undergarment to make myself feel good and surprise a lucky girl if the night went that far! You get the drift.

7. Don't text your date. I believe that protocol during the embryonic period of dating should be as text-free as possible. This early time in a relationship should be nothing short of poetic, and it actually used to be called "courting." Phone calls and sweet notes are far and away the best way to a woman's or man's heart. An unexpected delivery of flowers or chocolates shows women your sensitive side; even Cary Grant would be proud. Don't tell all your "boys" every last detail, thus spoiling an intimate place reserved in your heart. Girls, the same thing goes for you. If you are "falling for" a person and think you have a future, tell your people that and nothing more.

8. Never split the bill on a first date, especially a Valentine's date. I'm old-school; the man should pick up the tab. I do realize this is perhaps an antiquated way of thinking, but you can suck it!

9. NEVER say someone else's name in the throes of lovemaking. If you mistakenly call out your old girlfriend's name, make some shit up, and QUICK! This is the one instance when I can condone lying. If you can't remember the name of the person you're with, may I suggest coming up with some kick-ass moniker that you can remember. You will have to call that person by the same name tomorrow, after all! A name like "my little Irish whorelette," while it may be good after a couple of cocktails and thence into the "sack," probably won't work well in the morning with coffee and danish.

10. When dating my daughters, play by the rules. My oldest is 11, and the time is fast approaching when suitors will start the mad parade of jostling for her young love. Great! I live in the real world, and haven't buried my head in the sand about this upcoming period in her life. And when that first boy comes to my house to pick up Grace for her inaugural date with the opposite sex, I will be prepared. Remember, I DO know what that little dude's ulterior motives will be. No problem. I will take the young buck to the side for some ground rules, and it will go something like this: "Hey, bud. My name is Duff and I am Grace's daddy. Now, I want you guys to have a really excellent time tonight. As a matter of fact, let me store my phone number in your cell. Now listen, I would like it if you had her back home by 11 tonight, and just remember this: EVERYTHING THAT YOU DO OR TRY WITH MY DAUGHTER TONIGHT, I WILL DO THE EXACT SAME THING TO YOU WHEN YOU GUYS GET BACK HERE TO MY HOME! Great, now that that is FULLY understood, have a wonderful time and call me if you might need anything at all."

Happy Valentine's Day.

Duff on the cover of the issue w/Duff?s Dating Tips for Men

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/duffCOVER.jpg

Duff McKagan: How to Rock Off the Recession

Posted today at 9:21 am by Duff McKagan

So the stimulus package has been pushed through, and the summarizations of its results are now being listed publicly. President Obama has inherited a real "lulu" as far as our economy is concerned, and his name will forever be attached to this new "New Deal."

It is apparent that we are all really getting stressed about spending. Those of us with an income or money in the bank are becoming less and less likely to spread our cash around, thinking it safer to just hold on to what we got. "For Lease" signs in retail areas are becoming commonplace, harbingers of a choked and blackened economic turn. Maybe it is time for us all to take a collective breath and realize that this too shall pass... eventually. If I may suggest, here are a few upward results that I have gleaned from this stimulus package, and a few observations that I will keep my eye on.

? $400 a year per taxpayer, or at least those of you making less than $75K. From the outside, this appears to be nothing more than chump change. I guess if you multiply this 400 bucks a year by a few million taxpayers, though, and everyone actually puts that money into circulation, then we are going to see some results. So, please, put it into circulation. Try to buy some stuff made here in the States, though... we can use the influx of dough.

? New home buyers, now is your time. Sure, you could wait another eight months for that $300K home to lower its price by another 10 grand, but interest rates are the lowest in our time. If interest rates go up by even a quarter of one percent, you may pay 10 to 15 times that 10 grand you were hoping to save (over the life of the loan). The new stimulus package contains some tax-break incentives for you too, possibly close to the tune of $8,000. I'm not your financial planner, just a guy trying to spread some information around.

? Go to the soon-to-be-reopened Crocodile in March. Word on the street is that for its first weekend, all shows will be free of charge (stay tuned for details). On top of that, new part-owner Sean Kinney may be in attendance and regale you with his awesome stories about his halcyon, pre-Alice days as the house DJ at Burien's "Skate King".. .orange vest, feathered hair, and all. Now THAT is priceless!

? Nancy Pelosi has got to take a chill pill. I am not quite sure why she had to push the stimulus bill so urgently through the house. Wouldn't it have been better for everyone to have at least a few more days to look this thing over? This action, in my opinion, only widened the partisan conflict, and honestly makes me suspicious. I am all for this bill, but in the full light of transparency, as promised.

? Listen to music or go see a concert. I know that the Gutter Twins were just here and Katy Perry also just passed through (two acts that I HIGHLY recommend), and seeing both of these artists have truly inspired me over the last couple of months. Look, the last thing we want to do is to spiral in on this stupid recession mentally. I know that Ms. Perry may have hit a sour mark with one of my esteemed colleagues over here at the Weekly as far as personal politics go (and I respect my colleague), but that girl is pretty killer and knows how to have fun. The Gutter Twins are the polar opposite, but I believe they stir images and feelings of strength and demureness that negate all contemporary thought. Whatever?go out and fuckin' rock somewhere... or rock a fuck somewhere! Both are good for the soul.

? Lower expectations. As I've said before, I think we all got sort of caught up in the acquisition of more and more stuff. We were all guilty of jointly clearing out as much as we could from Costco and Forever 21?on debt, of course. Some of us are now staring blankly at the giant flatscreens and out-of-style designer jeans we have bought: the things we did to :keep up with the Joneses" and keep ourselves in step with our culture of greedy behavior. We treated our houses as banks, forever taking out second mortgages just to buy a new car or Jet-Ski to compete with our neighbor. Maybe now we will realize that our houses are our homes, not our own personal pieces of collateral.

And now it is time to smile, take a deep breath, and not watch any financial news whatsoever. They are selling record amounts of advertising because we are all watching...like we would a car crash.

This Is Duff McKagan Taking Your Questions. Again. And Again.

Posted yesterday at 9:48 pm by Duff McKagan

It's not that I am trying to use this space to further my career or highlight how "cool" I am. On the contrary, really. I think people who have followed my arcane musings in this paper have actually truly seen me in my buffoonish glory. In a few weeks, Loaded (my Seattle-based rock outfit) will be releasing our new record worldwide, and the press tour has already begun. You may hear or read an interview that one or all of us do in your local paper or on a local radio station. Rest assured that will not be the only one we'll have done that day. I thought it might be interesting to some of you to take a little trip with me on a typical three-day press jaunt. In this case, 56 interviews in 70 hours. Here goes...

Monday, Feb. 9: Travel from Los Angeles to JFK and arrive at Eddy Trunk's radio show in Manhattan at 7:30 pm that night.

Now Eddy has been around this business for a very long time and is a very good radio host. His show is pretty much commercial-free, which frees up time to play the music you want and to converse back and forth in a real in-depth way. I ended up staying on the show until its end at 10 p.m., and it was a great way to start the three-day stint. The people who phoned in were pretty well informed, and awkward moments were minimal. We played some cuts from the record and generally had a real good time. Got asked about search for a new Velvet Revolver singer and how Loaded got its name.

Tuesday, Feb. 10 (start time 8 a.m.): Today we start at CBS Radio in midtown Manhattan, where they will patch me through to numerous rock morning radio shows up and down the East Coast. Now when I get my coffee on... watch the fuck out. I can talk, and depending on how much caffeine, it can turn into a serious babble. I was suddenly brought back into focus when one of the radio-show hosts said he heard that VR had our new singer (and apparently, this was according to me!). I said that no, we did not have our singer quite yet, but yes, we could be close. Got asked about Loaded's name another 12 to 15 times. Time for a 10-minute lunch at Starbucks on our walk from CBS to Sirius Radio, also in midtown.

At Sirius, I am led around to the various radio shows that want a 15-to-20 minute interview about the new Loaded record. Also at this point, more and more people are getting interested in the fact that I write two weekly columns and that one of them is a FINANCIAL piece for Playboy. I was asked numerous times if I wanted to make a statement about VR's new singer. I politely stated that in fact we hadn't actually found "the guy" yet, but we were headed in a positive direction. I also started getting queried about whether I had been invited to the Playboy mansion yet. "No, I just write for them," said I. Again, was asked about Loaded's name more times that I care to remember.

I may have done a TV news show at this point, but it is kind of fuzzy. I got back to my hotel, went straight to the gym, and tried to get my "chi" back.

Wednesday, Feb. 11 (start time 8 a.m.): So we start today back at CBS Radio for yet another "radio tour" of East Coast morning radio shows. The reception for the new record is actually kind of overwhelming as more and more stations are beginning to add our single to their playlists.

Because I had done press for the previous two days, enough time had transpired for me to be generously misquoted. Questions like "Hey, Duff! How many times you been up to Hef's house?" or "What is your new singer's name?" seemed to drone at me and through me. Aw fuck... I've only got time for another Starbucks lunch before getting to the publishing offices of Playboy for another round of, you guessed it... radio interviews.

This time, the radio interviews were by phone (why, yes, I COULD have done this part in the comfort of my own home). The powers that be at Playboy were pretty excited that press people wanted to speak to them about something other than just naked chicks (nothing wrong with naked chicks, mind you!). As I got into the interviews, though, it was really becoming over-apparent that these questions about me going to the "mansion" and VR's new singer find were getting out of hand. I was happy to get some fresh air when this bit of phone glad-handing was over. On to Rolling Stone and...

You know what? Need I say more? Same shit, different question asker(s). I got back to my hotel and again went to the gym, this time desperately seeking some "me" time.

Thursday, Feb. 12: Today, I am doing Eddy Trunk's VH1 show in front of a studio audience. First, however, I must do a N.Y. rock radio morning show live and in person (these are usually always better, as the person interviewing you doesn't want to come off as a dumb-ass and ask you the same questions that everyone else has). The problem was they asked me EVERY SINGLE QUESTION THAT HAD BEEN ASKED OF ME REPEATEDLY FOR THE LAST 62 HOURS! If that wasn't bad enough, they didn't even seem to acknowledge that I had answered these questions and that my answers were right there on the Web site they were getting all their info from. I was actually saved by a few callers who called the radio host a moron, saving me the effort! Eddy Trunk's show went great, and all I had left now was a Spin interview and a trip to JFK to get on a plane.

Ah, but then it came. Once in a while, a guy in my position will come across interviewers who think they are real, real smart and have the sass to get cute with you. I had neither the time nor the patience to mince words. I asked the guy if he was being serious and if he really wanted to ask me the questions that he was asking me. The trick here is not to lose your shit. No, rather you want to point them in the direction that you would like the interview to go and leave on a high, which it did, and therefore, I did.

Loaded questions = 509
VR singer questions = 271
Playboy "mansion" questions (including the ones from all my friends I grew up with) = 2,192
Advil = 16

Next week, Mike and I head out for a 16-city radio tour. Stay tuned.

P.S. The editor's thought some of you may want to know the answers to some of the questions I was asked.

1) 'Loaded' is a name I came up with back in 1997. The tie-in with my old band's name was unintentional as the 'loaded' that I was thinking of was meant as inebriation.
2) VR has yet to find its' new singer but I will be sure to let you know here first.
3) As of this writing, I have yet to be invited to Hef's pad. I would probably just pass on the invite to a few friends anyhow...don't want to mention any names (Andy and Brian)!

Press Tour Redux: Meet Mike Squires

Posted yesterday at 11:55 pm by Duff McKagan

Mike Squires and myself are on a two- week long radio tour this week and next for our band Loaded. Our first single "Flatline" is getting a ton of play at radio and Mike and I are out here 'taking it to the people' (visiting the stations in person). Rarely is there a time in the company of this band where one will not hear laughter../ and a lot of it at that. To continue where I left off last week, may I present "Press Tour: Part II"

Sunday, March 1: Fly to Minneapolis. Mike and I get in the night before our radio visit to discover that they just don't fuck around up here in these parts when it comes to REAL cold weather! No worries, we won't be spending too much time actually outside, right? I mean we will just be going straight to the station in the morning and then straight to the airport after that to catch our plane to Detroit. But still, it's fucking cold!

Monday, March 2: The morning radio show went well and Mike and I were even able to play a couple of our songs live on acoustic guitars. We have a local record label representative who has been driving us around and now drops us off at the airport with three hours to spare. The problem now is that we got dropped off AT THE WRONG AIRPORT! We are told by a very nice Minnesotan that all we have to do is walk a little ways (outside!), catch a train (we had to wait OUTSIDE for it) , and then catch a tram...oh, that's all? With luggage, guitar cases, and backpacks in tow, Mike and I began our trudge through the frozen tundra. Once we finally get to the correct airport, we find that our plane is delayed indefinitely by a mechanical problem. Mike just farted. Ah, the glamorous life!

Tuesday, March 3: We finally got out of Minneapolis and arrive in Detroit all safe and sound. Our Midwest 'radio guys' from our record label are both here and are extremely pumped about getting some 'adds' this week (radio guys are always exited by nature, but our dudes are cooler than most...because we are Loaded and EVERYTHING is cool around us, naturally). 'Adds' is a term used for getting your song 'added' to a particular radio stations' playlist. Mike informs me that he is going to shave his beard but leave a thin 'promotional' mustache. One of our radio guys actually manages Seattle's own Wellwater Conspiracy as it turns out, and we fill the three-hour drive to Cleveland with conversations about Matt Cameron, Kurt Bloch, and all the things that kick butt about Seattle in general. Our trip to the Detroit station earlier today was again killer, and Mike and I got to actually play live a second time.

We find out that a double murder had just taken place in front of our hotel but decide to stay anyway. Shit, it's probably the safest place in all of Cleveland tonight! Squires now states that for the rest of the trip, he wants to only be addressed in the 3rd person...and to not look at him directly in the eyes. Whatever, princess.

Wednesday, March 4: Today is the BIG one. We will be driving from Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati to Indianapolis. We find out this morning that the 'double-murder' was an execution-style affair. Apparently downtown Cleveland is getting pretty dicey and there has been an exodus lately from the city dwellers back to the 'burbs. The FM rock station we are doing is one of those wacky-make-farts-sounds jobs. Squires and I however, kept the goofiness at bay and they were actually real cool to us (as opposed to being not cool, which definitely happens). Squires, by the way, is now donning a velveteen, red, floor-length robe that he insists was King Henry the VIII's. He now only responds to the name 'The Wizard'. More to come on this., and of that, I am quite sure.

Columbus was quite mellow and the station DJ let Squires and I tell our dumb jokes and otherwise work off some road giddiness. I spoke with my esteemed SW colleague Krist Novoselic about being a 'host' for a fundraising gig for Dow Constantine (a man who will fight for us all in King County politics!). I asked Krist what a 'host' actually does and he promised me that there would be no funny business or guy-on-farm animal hanky panky. Squires informs me that he (Squires) wants some guy-on-horse hanky panky.

The road now leads us to Cincinnati, where we have two more shows to do today, then it's a drive to Indianapolis. Tomorrow we are doing a syndicated show that goes to 156 radio stations and it also films in front of a live studio audience. Squires is already demanding his own 'Star Wagon'(personal RV) and a director's chair with 'The Wizard' printed in gold leaf on the back. Squires has his own personal fan base thus dubbed the 'Squires Army' and they promise to show up in full force at tomorrow's TV taping...for they are legion and they are many.

It is now Wednesday night and we have finally arrived at our hotel in Indianapolis...I am completely and totally fried. I love to write with humor when I can and hope that it is very evident that all of the stuff about Squires and Krist is meant in jest. What is life, after all, without a lot of fun involved. That's my motto anyway. For obvious reasons, I will not be able to talk about my whole week as I have to turn this column in now! Radio stations are now adding the single and we hope that Loaded will be playing a town near you in the next few months. GOODNIGHT!!!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/03/press_tour_part_ii.php

(http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/assets_c/2009/02/duffFASTBACKS-thumb-200x303.jpg)
Duff at 15 playing in The Fastbacks

Posted yesterday at 11:21 pm

Last Christmas I wrote of a family who was barely making ends meet as they fought alongside their daughter with leukemia. I spoke of the importance of the Ronald McDonald House providing a roof for these families who have otherwise tapped out their savings in their plight. Other than that single column, I have stayed away from trying to steer a reader someplace or to some cause I think they should know about. Some of you know, while I may be full of myself at times, it is my hope that you know I am not full of shit. I don't ever want to come off as preachy, but only to share things of substance from my personal experiences-good OR bad. Take what you will from them.

Growing up in this town during the early punk-rock movement was nothing short of fantastically inspiring. Our scene was pretty minuscule, so we all knew each other and probably played in one another's bands some time between 1979 and early '82. Sure, we drank a ton of beer and maybe experimented with LSD, mushrooms, and coke, but beyond that it was pretty innocent.

Sometime in 1982, as the scene became bigger and a recession hit Seattle, we all noticed a huge influx of heroin and pills. I witnessed my first overdose when I was 18. Addiction suddenly skyrocketed within my circle of friends and death by overdose became almost commonplace. By the time I was 22, two of my best friends had passed from ODs. Many of these early addicts have either died or live a pitiful existence to this day. These are the same people who I personally witnessed a wonderful lust for life and a whimsical glint in the eye, looking forward to the future. No one sets out to be a junkie or alcoholic. Some people can just experiment in their youth and move on. Others cannot. Science has admitted that there is an actual difference in neuro- transmitter, serotonin levels and other inputs, that separate a person who will become addicted, and one who will not.

I was recently introduced to one Susan Peck, a woman who has the heartbreaking cross to bare of losing her 19 year-old son Jonathon to suicide brought on by a youth-long (short?) history of drug addiction. The Peck family has a history of alcoholism and therefore had family talks with their kids about things to watch out for. "It wasn't a chat of 'don't do it', but more a matter of 'you will.' It became more of a talk of 'these are the symptoms you need to be aware of...you have a loaded gun to your head.' As it turned out, their son 'pulled the trigger'", Susan explained to me of early Peck family conversations.

Susan's life has been changed forever. That is for sure. But her call to service has been energized to say the least. She is a key member of family support services that educate like-afflicted parents and children. And she has become a vocal advocate of 3 year-old SAMA.

The Science and Management of Addictions (SAMA) was formed 3 years ago by 2 medically savvy individuals (Dr. Robert Day and and CJ Taylor Day) who at any turn could call upon the doctors of Fred Hutch, Swedish, and the University of Washington Hospital to cull answers from the fertile medical establishments surrounding them in the Pacific Northwest. So when their own daughter was diagnosed with the disease of substance addiction they were appalled at the lack of research, advocacy, and education being done on this disease. As parents, they became helpless victims along with their ailing daughter to a broader community still mired in old stigmas and discriminations of character as opposed to a brain disease.

SAMA wants to do active research to scientifically explore and unlock the reasons why one child's brain wants/needs an addictive substance over another who abuses recreationally. They hope to one day FIND A SCIENTIFIC CURE!!

Right now, I am reading 'Beautiful Boy' by David Sheff, which depicts his family's struggles with their son's meth addiction. From a personal level, I have suffered and struggled with addiction, and must be daily vigilant against this monster in waiting. Addiction is not romantic, artsy, or cool. It is nothing short of sheer terror and hopelessness. I am behind any scientific advancement for others and myself suffering. Would we leave cancer untreated? Diabetes? No we wouldn't.

Go to www.samafoundation.org. if you or someone you know are interested in support for a loved one-or, just want to help.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/03/_youth_drug_addiction_last.php#more

Storytime: Grand Theft Auto and LSD
By Duff McKagan in Duff McKaganThursday, Mar. 19 2009 @ 7:25AM
(http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/duffSPLASH.jpg)
Duff McKagan's column runs every Thursday on Reverb.
In an attempt to flesh out some stories that may one day become a gateway to a larger literary body of work, I'm going to write some short pieces of my own. That being said, I am a little scared to share some of these stories in that they are not meant to influence youth in any way, shape, or form. Hey, maybe they can be construed as cautionary tales?

These stories will be instantly visible to the world via the Web, and backlash may be swift. I may be charged with trying to glorify and glamorize certain things that I went through. I am not. I'm only using this place as a testing ground, and I feel secure enough to take whatever criticism may come my way as a result of a some of my more "colorful" times. Oh well, at least the statute of limitations has run out on most of the crimes I will be writing about. And in the legal arena at least, I am seemingly safe (I hope that Seattle Weekly has a good legal department).

As an aside: I don't believe our parents were to blame for any or all of our miscreant behaviors. In my case, I was the last of eight kids, and by the time I was 9, my parents had divorced and my mom was pretty much left to fend and provide for our household on her own. This meant that she had no other choice but to leave me with a lot of responsibility, and I just didn't rise to the occasion right away. I wish I could've been a better son in those difficult transition years for my mother. I still kick myself for some of the hell that I surely put her through. I look back now and it is obvious that I was trying to figure out where my place was in this world without a father figure to rely on as a role model at home.

My father, conversely, was trying to figure out what life was about, period. I do not blame him for anything (although I certainly did back then). He was a WWII vet who started having children with my mother when he was 18 and didn't stop until he was 38. He went straight from the war to working for the Seattle Fire Department, desperately trying to provide for what would become eight children. By the time I was in elementary school, I believe that he was simply feeling trapped and wanted to see what else life had in store for him. He never had a chance to be a kid, and in my opinion he wanted to try to get some of his youth back. He should have gone about his whole scheme in another way. My saintly mom was left "holding the bag," and we eight brothers and sisters cherish the memory of this amazing and strong woman. Marie Alice McKagan endured this all with a lion's heart, a scholar's intellect, and lots of patience, of that I am sure.

I started smoking pot at a REALLY young age: 4th grade, to be exact. I took my first drink at 10 and tasted LSD for the first time at 11. These things were so new in the '70s, and there just wasn't the huge stigma and general warnings about child drug use. We were just experimenting, that's all. But this piece isn't going to be about drugs; it's just that I am trying to highlight the fact that we just seemed to grow up a bit faster back then. No, this story is really about crime... car theft, to be exact.

The best friends I established by 6th grade are still my best friends to this day?Abe, Edgar, and Bob?the 4 of us were pretty much inseparable (I've changed their names here). They are good and solid men, but back in middle school we tested our boundaries against grown-ups and authority. We were harmless troublemakers, really, but soon found ourselves in the line of fire against an asshole counselor at Eckstein. In my case, I was suspended twice and finally expelled. "Yeah, good riddance," I remember thinking to myself. Besides, I was already crafting a new career for myself.

Abe and I started to separate ourselves from the pack at this point. We both embraced the new and exciting punk-rock scene that had recently hit Seattle. Abe and I formed the Vains with Chris Utting in 1979, three years before we were of legal driving age. In the daylight hours, I would take the bus anywhere and everywhere that I had to be for band practice or my new job as a dishwasher, etc. When it got dark, though, Abe and I began to hone our craft as burgeoning car thieves.

I remember clearly the first car we, um, borrowed. It was a 1963 VW Bug. It all seemed innocent enough at first. It was 2 a.m., and we were stuck without a ride home at some punk-rock party in deep Ballard. It being Seattle and all, of course it was raining and cold. Abe and I only got about 10 blocks into our seven-mile walk when it dawned on us to try stealing a car and driving ourselves the rest of the way home. We had heard of a simple and easy way to trip an ignition on any and all pre-'64 Bugs, but had never put our knowledge to the test. We soon found our car, and clumsily broke in a wing window with a jackboot. Once we got the car started, we both realized that neither one of us knew how to drive a car, let alone one with a clutch. We found out the hard way that first gear can indeed get you from point A to point B, seven miles away, albeit slowly!

When you are a kid, the lust for being of driving age is nothing short of intoxicating. Abe and I discovered after our first night in the stolen VW that we no longer had to wait until we were 16 years old to have access to a car. We began to sharpen our tactics and skill as car thieves?even studying new ways to hot-wire Peugeots and Audis. Sometimes we even held onto certain cars for a week or more, parking them in rich neighborhoods where the police would be less likely to look for a stolen vehicle.

On top of this, it was at times the things we found INSIDE these cars that would lead us to further criminal activities outside the car-stealing racket. Once we found a large set of keys that had only an address attached to them. This address was a large laundromat, and the keys were to the lock-boxes that held all of that particular day's change intake (hundreds of dollars a day, which to us was a fortune).

Our exploits began to garner attention from older, savvier criminals. The newspaper began to run stories of things we were involved in, and this is when I began to see only a dire ending for myself?jail or worse. It was time to get out. Besides, at this point my music career began to get more serious, and I met a girl. I was done.

Abe, however, continued to widen his circle of criminal activities for a while longer. He started to hang with a crowd that, while exotic, seemed also a bit dark and dangerous. Abe started to specialize in particular foreign makes, stolen for particular clients who were willing to pay. Edgar, Bob, and I started to become concerned. Abe was arrested one night after a high-speed chase with the Seattle Police. The crimes? Grand Theft Auto and Reckless Evading. Shit.

I have only been able to touch on a minuscule part of this period of my life in this short column. Rest assured, it could have had a LOT worse outcome for me and my friends as far as criminal records, jail time, or worse. Having kids of my own now makes me realize just how very young I was when I did some of the things I did. I cringe looking at my daughters sometimes. They know of some of my childhood antics; the more serious stories can wait. The weight I have to carry is one day having to share it with them. The McKagans do honesty these days, and that I probably learned from my own father not doing it.

Back on the Mountain With New Boots and Tim Medvetz

By Duff McKagan
Thursday, Mar. 26 2009

A few months back, I wrote of my trials and mini-triumphs along the trail of my training toward climbing Mt. Rainier this summer. My work as a musician requires a ton of traveling, and finding time to train for a 14,000-plus-foot mountain within these confines is quite challenging (hotel fire-escape stairs do work, and I always take a jump-rope). I have a few days off from work this week, and will use them to do some "survival training" in the high-altitude back country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

If you remember, my mountain training partner in California is more famously known as "biker" Tim from the Discovery series Everest. Tim has topped Everest as well as Rainier and sundry other peaks in Mexico and the Himalayas. He is one tough mofo?6'6" tall and 245 pounds of pure muscle. He is the kind of guy who walks into a bar and dudes get scared by his presence alone. I'm not quite sure what powers of fate put the two of us together in this life, but I am quite sure that "God" or whoever has a killer sense of humor. Our personalities together make for some really funny moments. At times he tries to get mad at me for my back-country incompetence, but I just give him shit right back. I tell him that I am not the one to blame for whatever is making him so damn mad, and that whatever happened to him in his teenage (or whenever) years, we can probably work it out with a nice talk and maybe a comfy bro hug. Tim doesn't do comfy. (Except for the "camp booties" he triumphantly pulls from his backpack after a hard day's climb. Real cute.) I know that I can run faster than Tim because he has a fused ankle from a bad bike accident 10 years ago. Because I know this, I can write this piece and give him more shit within this space. He will read it and get even madder at me. I see myself as sort of a Kato to his Green Hornet.

My first foray with Tim was up 10,500-foot Mt. Baldy, and I made the rookie mistake of wearing brand new boots. Don't EVER do this. You can't really say that my feet blistered, because frankly there just wasn't any skin left to form a blister. I couldn't tell Tim that my feet hurt on the way up Baldy, because he quite possibly would have tagged me as a pussy, and my brazen manliness won't allow for that. They say that the worst thing that can happen to you on Everest is getting blisters on your feet. Not only can't one walk, but there is also just no way to keep your feet clean at all times, and infection is sure to happen. A simple infection on your foot can turn to staph at any time, some strains of which can be terribly resistant to antibiotics. Staph causes blood poisoning and that poison will kill you. First stop before the back country. . . get better boots!

Adventure 16 is L.A.'s version of REI. They have everything you might need for some serious outdoor activity. The people that work here actually climb mountains and kayak the rapids. When a tattooed guy such as myself comes sauntering into a place like this, they instinctively know to shun and make you feel an outsider. "Hey, aren't you that 'rock guy'?" says Roman, a climber and salesman at A16. "What the hell are you doing HERE?" Ah, yes, the old discrimination. I find this everywhere I go. Apparently, I'm not supposed to do ANYTHING besides, well, rocking. Luckily Tim joins me at the store, and the salespeople realize that if I am with him, I must be somewhat OK. I get it: Just because TIM climbed EVEREST and has his own TV SHOW on DISCOVERY, he is taken seriously. And because I play ROCK 'N' ROLL and NEARLY DRANK MYSELF TO DEATH and look like I COULDN'T CLIMB A LADDER, I am not. Whatever. . .

The name of my new guy for boots is Alia, who has the tell-all nickname of "the shoe Nazi" (I'm not sure if he knows this or not). Alia takes footwear seriously, and I was his newest mystery to solve. He examined every aspect of my foot before I even tried on a boot. When I did finally get to the point of putting on a pair, he methodically showed me how to stomp at the heel first, and how to lace up with his complex formula of loops and knots. As I walked around the store, Alia would follow and have me stop at certain junctures so that he could adjust the boot and/or jab a finger inside the back to see if any space had opened up. Tim, meanwhile, was getting friendly with a family outfitting for a Himalayan foothill adventure. This family included two daughters in their 20s, and Tim had found his wheelhouse. The ladies love Tim.

Back in the real world, now that I have finally the right boots, the realization that Mt. Rainier is in my near future kind of hits me out of nowhere. I know that huge summer crevasses will be yawning under-foot for the one most unfortunate to be above when the exact amount of thawing will cause a breakthrough. The threat of overhanging ice calving in huge sheets is also very real (a boyhood friend died just this way back in the '80s). For now, though, I must focus on training and getting as much high-altitude knowledge as I can outside of my teeming personal Alpine library at home. The shit is getting very real now.

Something else helps pull me from my chilling daydream: "You have such beautiful blue eyes!" Ah, yeah, the girls have come under the mad spell of Tim Medvetz. I will not let him live THIS moment down for our whole trip this week. I can already feel him getting mad.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/03/backcountry.php

Duff McKagan: Croc and Loaded

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Apr. 2 2009

I think by now that anyone who reads this column is pretty damn sure I play in a band that doesn't carry the history of GN'R or the current popularity of Velvet Revolver. No, I am in one band that while actually staying together LONGER that any of thos previous bands, remains popular only in our own comical minds. Yes, I refer to this band of excellent gentlemen somewhat aptly dubbed LOADED.

On April 7 we're releasing Sick, our first record in some eight years. To start things off we wanted to keep it real and keep it local. The Crocodile has been so kind as to let us play on Thursday April 9. Many thanks to Susan Silver, Sean Kinney, and Eli the booker. I, for one, cannot thank this crew enough. Playing our first gig of our world tour right here in town seems apropos?the Croc is a venue that I have many fond and fine memories of. (I think I played drums with the Fastbacks there one night before Guns did the Kingdome. My memory is indeed a tad foggy from those days in general, but that is a whole different story.)

Playing a gig here in town also gives a chance for me to maybe meet some of the people who write in to my column on a weekly basis. "Nevermind" is the first one who pops to mind. A person (I presume to be a man) that gave me crap from column-one, but our cyber-relationship has blossomed into well-meaning jabs of cynicism and a shared past of drug use and subsequent sobriety...I do hope he still gives me shit after this piece and do hope that he comes to this gig and hunts me down.

"Mad Mama" is another one that has been a stalwart friend to the column and has cheered me on at every step as I plunge myself into this new endeavor of writing, mountaineering and sundry other tomfoolery and publicly viewed 'vision-questing'.

Of the readers that I deem to be local, a professor dubbed "Kris" has a blog of his/her own that is drenched with deep-thought and hyper-awareness. I am honored that people like this even give a guy like me the time of day to read the neophyte script that I turn in to the Weekly. (On this subject, I just watched CBS's Sunday Morning and there was a segment on bogging and news otherwise obtained on the Web. Apparently, for the first 100 or so years of their existence?1680 to 1780?newspapers would leave a blank page at the end of an article so that readers could write their comments and then pass it along for someone else to cross-comment. By 1915 there were some 15,000 different newspapers and magazines circulating in the U.S. Radio, TV, and other media eventually diminished the high demand, but it appears now that with the Internet, we are back up to having the wide variety celebrated those 100 years ago. Back to the future, I guess.)

My newfound writing career has also proven to be an effective marketing tool. Playboy is coming to town, not only to film the Loaded show, but also to follow me around the next day, as I will give an on-camera expose of 'my' Seattle. I hope that they are aware that 'my' Seattle doesn't consist of strip-clubs and singles bars. Only occasionally will I hire a gimp in full bondage gear for a cocktail party or one of our daughters' birthday parties here at Manor McKagan. No, 'my' Seattle is pretty pathetic and un-sexy, unless you consider Martin Feveyear, Mike Squires, and Sean Kinney sexy. Well, Sean IS kind of hot on second thought. Actually, our dog Buckley DOES think that he himself is a porn-star at times-he may be good for the Playboy piece. Maybe I can take them to Sonic Boom records so that I can at least APPEAR to be somewhat hip and cool. Yea, I can lie and say that I have always been into vinyl and that I don't even own an iPod (it's really cool to say that you are into vinyl, right?). My ruse would be undone though. They at Sonic Boom would most certainly make a comment like "Hey, you must have finally got a turntable; you've never bought RECORDS here before!"

We just received our routing for our June European tour. It looks like it will be nine stinky guys on a bus for 28 days this time as opposed to 14 days like last September (see "Fart Tennis"). It will be summer rock festival time on that continent and we really got on some amazing gigs over there. They just have better names for their festivals over there too, like Rock AM Ring, Graspop, Metal Way, Nova Rock, and of course Download Festival. (It used to be called Donnington Park and if you've ever seen the GN'R "Paradise City" video, the black-and-white part was shot there at Donnington. It will be cool for me to get back there for sure.)

So that is it for now. Hopefully some of you will be able to make it to the Thursday gig in Seattle, or to some other damn place on this planet. I've been storing up some good jokes to regale all of you with, too. Until then...rock the fuck out!

Merle Haggard, Mark Lanegan, and Your Summer Reading List

By Duff McKagan Thursday, Apr. 9 2009

This city of Seattle never ceases to surprise and intrigue me. It is a cultural and artistic melting pot and that is for sure. I try and see life through much more than just "a musician's" eyes, but oftentimes it is at musical events that I feel closest to my comfort zone. Maybe it is here that I can let down my veil of adult, my facade of judgment. Perhaps my observations are less colored by outside factors whilst I am in a club or a theater.

Sometimes I will see 100 gigs a year and find very little to be inspired by. At other periods in my life, I will see three or four shows in a short amount of time that just seem to make me a better person. Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson at the Paramount the other night gave much more to me than I could have hoped for.

Merle's battle with lung-cancer led to some hushed-tone urgency when tickets to a date or two of his become available. Reverence for the man and his career were obviously evident last Friday. Kris Kristofferson may have summed up the evening's sentiment with his song "Here Comes That Rainbow Again". If you haven't yet heard it, I strongly suggest you do so.

Another aspect of that evening gave me pause for reflection: real, hard-core Merle and Kristofferson fans aren't the ultra-hip scribes and scenesters that one may hear bragging about a show like this. No, the people who were there were from Eastern and Central Washington, south of Olympia and north of, well, downtown and Capitol Hill. These people looked hardscrabble and perma-tanned from years of working in the sun. The thing about Seattle though, is that there is a comfort zone here for a crowd like this. As I was driving up Pike after the gig, I saw some punkers walking an old cowboy and his wife to a bar. Cool.

This town was host to some of the first punk rock clubs in the country back in the '70s, too. Early Northwest punk bands like D.O.A. and the Fastbacks in turn informed the scene that would burst on the world consciousness with Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. Perhaps Seattle's most precious musical commodity would not have been able to ferment without the solidarity that is shown to its musicians (that "commodity" to me is Mark Lanegan).

We seemingly were seen as a place that was open-minded enough to host the first rap tour when other cities' promoters didn't see the worth in it (yes, Grand Master Flash at the Music Hall in late 1980 I believe). "Urban" radio got some of its earliest high-audience ratings here in our town.

And now on to our weather.

This past weekend we finally caught sight of springtime. It seems that all it really takes is two consecutive days of near 70-degree weather for us to forget all that we knew of the long, dismal Seattle winter. In my humble opinion, there really is nothing or no place in this world like summer in Seattle. The Mariners will be having their home opener on April 14 and we can get our hopes up for at least not finishing in the A.L. cellar like last year.

May I suggest some good reads for your lazy, ever-lengthening days ahead?

Mr. Untouchable: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Heroin's Teflon Don, Nicky Barnes. This is a no-holds-barred biopic of Harlem's Nicky Barnes, a self-made drug mogul who almost got away with it all.

Beautiful Boy, David Sheff. This book really jarred me as it probably hit closer to home than I was expecting as a father myself. This book explores a father and son's heartbreaking journey through meth addiction. A simply amazing read.

Longitude, Dava Sobel. If you are an exploration and adventure nerd like myself, then you will know that having only latitudinal readings spelled disaster for many of our early maritime discoverers. The hunt for the mysteries that finally unlocked longitude were not just mathematical. Many people in high places wanted the credit and reward that a simple carpenter inevitably got to take home.

My Bondage, My Freedom, Frederick Douglass. I read this book while I was at Seattle University a few years back. When a book is a required read in a particular course, rarely do you find it to be a page-turner. Douglass' account of his young life in slavery, his eventual escape into the North, and scholastic and cultural stardom paint a vivid picture of what life was like, not only for him in the 1800s, but the rest of America as well.

Hitmen, Frederic Dannen. An amazing expose of the record industry circa 1980s: Payola, sex, scandal and intrigue. Good shit!

Q, Quincy Jones). A large portion of this book takes a look at Mr. Jones' early days right here in Seattle. It enlightened me to read about how thriving and great a jazz scene we had here in the 40s and 50s. Quincy is a bad motherfucker!

Lexicon Devil, Brendon Mullen. For anyone who doesn't know about the Germs, this would be the book to get you caught up. The Germs were one of the most influential American punk bands, PERIOD. Brendon Mullen does the band and the era justice.

60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Seattle, Andrew Weber and Bryce Stevens. Yeah, that's right. Get the fuck out of that chair or sofa and up into those mountains that you look at so longingly from Capitol Hill or the 520 bridge!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/04/merle_et_al.php

Duff McKagan: Why I'm An Eternal Optimist

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Apr. 16 2009

I'm that guy who is constantly trying to see the "good" or "bright" side of most things. Reason and common sense do play into my rosy visions, and therefore inform me that not everyone or every situation may agree with the way that I look at it/them. I think that the moment that jadedness or ill will seeps into a person's thought process, it's then a dangerous and slippery slope toward what could be all-encompassing grey gloomy-Gusdom. To hell with that.

Obama has been sharply criticized by the conservatives of this country for not being "tougher" with the Europeans on his recent trip there for the G20 Economic Summit. Sure, pledges were made for some $1.1 trillion for a continental version of our TARP, but some say that Obama should have been sharper in tone and more bellicose in nature. I guess I'm not as cynical.

It appears to me that the maiden trip served its purpose in that Obama put world leaders on notice that they are dealing with someone who has intellect and a plan more nuanced than schoolyard diplomacy. If a politician (or anyone else, for that matter) yells, screams, and makes demands from the get-go, there really is no place to go from there. There may be more room for getting real work done if one goes into a situation first with a touch of humility and an air of academia and social ease. These things he most certainly did.

Also, it seems that the Obama administration is doing away with bleak terms like "Axis of Evil" and "War on Terror." I have no time or patience for religious fundamentalists who prop up terrorist acts to bring attention to their cause. These small groups of assholes must certainly be dealt with, but to give their movement and actions more attention does them a favor. Disenfranchised youth love to be part of something that goes against the grain, and in those parts of the world, the Taliban and their ilk is that something. When you get someone like Obama spreading the seeds of something kinder and more positive and having sit-down talks with the Taliban, then those youth will perhaps have to stop joining the ranks of the terrorist paramilitary camps.

Right now I am reading The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes. The book recounts, for the most part, the trials and tribulations that this country went through recovering from the Great Depression. Roosevelt did a lot of things right in his recovery efforts, but there were definitely stumbles and missteps along the way. One of the big problems that generation faced is the same one we are experiencing now: a lack of consumer confidence. A dark outlook on the economy seeps into every pore of our society. Even when prolonged favorable economic indicators were prevalent back in the '30s, the public remained sharply resistant to giving their collective confidence back to our banking system and government. Chin up, people! The more I read of historical events, the more I see that everything is cyclical. I have optimism because history is the great indicator of future events for me.

Another reason for me to be pleased of late is our Seattle Mariners! Yeah, I know that it is painfully early to start to even THINK about talking or writing about the M's, but hey, I like how this team looks. Edny Chavez and Erik Bedard are just two of the reasons to pique Seattleites' interest in getting tickets to this first home stand. Ichiro and Junior's return are great stories, but a winning team with a couple of aces and some clutch bats would be a better one. Shit, we had a come-from-behind win last Saturday against the A's; I don't remember ONE of those from last year, do you?

Last summer I came off a brutal and drama-filled year touring our last Velvet Revolver record. All I wanted to do was get back to Seattle and watch some Mariners games on TV or go to Safeco. I think that I got back from tour somewhere around June 1. The season was already over. We all look forward to our teams being at least competitive in (at least) their divisions. Last season's M's gave me nothing in return for my abundant fandom, and it sucked. I have some optimism for this season, and it just feels good to have that right now.

The Huskies football program? No place to go from here but up. Seahawks? Same thing. I hear that there is even a soccer team in town now, too. What's next? Maybe there will be a ban on semi-automatic weapons...that would get me REAL optimistic!

Duff McKagan: Rock Has Changed, My (Facebook) Friends

By Duff McKagan

Thursday, Apr. 23 2009

So here I go again; off on yet another of the by-now-countless rock tours required to support a new record (I think the count now stands at 10 records, hence 10 tour campaigns). Doing this for the past 20-odd years has afforded me a serious bird's-eye view of just how drastic this business of music has changed.

"Hey! I'm your Facebook friend!" is probably the most common greeting a band or artist hears out here on the road these days. For a band to even think about a mere modicum of success these days, they must know how to reach the listener or potential fan via the Internet. Back in the day, radio was the one-and-only vehicle a band or artist had to get any recognition outside their hometown. Today, pretty much all the rock radio stations are owned by one or two corporate conglomerates whose only interest is to sell advertising space. Advertisers don't want anything close to danger anywhere even remotely close to their product being pimped. This makes for really safe and REALLY boring radio. (We are lucky in Seattle, though. KISW has somehow kept a bit of individuality and honor, playing what they want on Joleen's show, etc.) You may wonder why it is that you hear the same 10 fucking songs on your local station. These 10 songs have been "tested" vigorously.

Song testing is a very interesting thing. Well, interesting if you like lame. At song-testing sites, they will find an audience (usually for free pizza and 50 bucks) and play a certain rock song for them. In front of each audience member, there is a sheet of paper that informs the participant to choose one of the following:

A) I would turn the channel if I heard this song
B) I would turn the volume UP if I heard this song
C) I would turn the volume down if I heard this song
D) I would do nothing If I heard this song

Interestingly enough, D is the answer they are looking for. That's right, if you feel no emotion toward the song, you are more likely not to touch the dial at all. Not unlike a sheep, you would just continue listening to that channel and be pummeled by the commercials when those came along too.

OK, so we as fans and artists have transcended commercial radio and other pitfalls of the major record labels and corporate bullshit. Bands have figured out that while, yes, they won't sell as many records because of illegal digital downloading, these same bands can get more exposure from MySpace, YouTube, and other Internet means of social networking. More visibility in the ether can mean more people at your show buying your T-shirts and maybe even your CD. (I have noticed that fans WILL buy your music at a venue. Maybe it is the excitement that is generated by the live show that pushes the fan to further support the artist. I dunno.)

Fans can now find really obscure and independent acts just by taking cues from links on YouTube, etc. My eldest daughter finds all the new music she listens to by these means. By the time an artist "blows up" in a commercial sense, kids like my daughter are WAY past it. Metal Sludge and Blabbermouth are popular places too to find the latest news and gossip about your favorite band, putting a strain on paper publications like Rolling Stone and Spin.

But maybe there is a grassroots backlash a-brewin'. Kids will come up to us guys in Loaded and constantly ask if we are going to put out our newest record on vinyl. Yes, vinyl is really making a comeback, even sparking the major labels to press older catalogues on vinyl again. Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart all have put up vinyl sections in their stores. Independent record stores are again becoming the "hip" place to hang out for youth. (I just visited a record store in Nashville called Grimey's that had at least 1,000 kids show up when some local acts played in their back parking lot. It seemed like every one of them had a new vinyl purchase tucked under their arm). Who knows, perhaps Cream and Hit Parader will come out of forced retirement?

Yeah, I guess it just comes down to the fact that EVERYTHING is pretty much cyclical. Whether it's economic recessions we are talking about, or the need to hear music in a warm analog. I just hope that '90s junkie-chic and skinny "boy-looking" fashion models never come back in vogue. THAT was a bad period that should just be forgotten.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/04/_the_changing_rock_times.php

Quote from: FunkyMonkey on April 23, 2009, 10:42:38 PM

Duff McKagan: Rock Has Changed, My (Facebook) Friends

By Duff McKagan

Thursday, Apr. 23 2009

So here I go again; off on yet another of the by-now-countless rock tours required to support a new record (I think the count now stands at 10 records, hence 10 tour campaigns). Doing this for the past 20-odd years has afforded me a serious bird's-eye view of just how drastic this business of music has changed.

"Hey! I'm your Facebook friend!" is probably the most common greeting a band or artist hears out here on the road these days. For a band to even think about a mere modicum of success these days, they must know how to reach the listener or potential fan via the Internet. Back in the day, radio was the one-and-only vehicle a band or artist had to get any recognition outside their hometown. Today, pretty much all the rock radio stations are owned by one or two corporate conglomerates whose only interest is to sell advertising space. Advertisers don't want anything close to danger anywhere even remotely close to their product being pimped. This makes for really safe and REALLY boring radio. (We are lucky in Seattle, though. KISW has somehow kept a bit of individuality and honor, playing what they want on Joleen's show, etc.) You may wonder why it is that you hear the same 10 fucking songs on your local station. These 10 songs have been "tested" vigorously.

Song testing is a very interesting thing. Well, interesting if you like lame. At song-testing sites, they will find an audience (usually for free pizza and 50 bucks) and play a certain rock song for them. In front of each audience member, there is a sheet of paper that informs the participant to choose one of the following:

A) I would turn the channel if I heard this song
B) I would turn the volume UP if I heard this song
C) I would turn the volume down if I heard this song
D) I would do nothing If I heard this song

Interestingly enough, D is the answer they are looking for. That's right, if you feel no emotion toward the song, you are more likely not to touch the dial at all. Not unlike a sheep, you would just continue listening to that channel and be pummeled by the commercials when those came along too.

OK, so we as fans and artists have transcended commercial radio and other pitfalls of the major record labels and corporate bullshit. Bands have figured out that while, yes, they won't sell as many records because of illegal digital downloading, these same bands can get more exposure from MySpace, YouTube, and other Internet means of social networking. More visibility in the ether can mean more people at your show buying your T-shirts and maybe even your CD. (I have noticed that fans WILL buy your music at a venue. Maybe it is the excitement that is generated by the live show that pushes the fan to further support the artist. I dunno.)

Fans can now find really obscure and independent acts just by taking cues from links on YouTube, etc. My eldest daughter finds all the new music she listens to by these means. By the time an artist "blows up" in a commercial sense, kids like my daughter are WAY past it. Metal Sludge and Blabbermouth are popular places too to find the latest news and gossip about your favorite band, putting a strain on paper publications like Rolling Stone and Spin.

But maybe there is a grassroots backlash a-brewin'. Kids will come up to us guys in Loaded and constantly ask if we are going to put out our newest record on vinyl. Yes, vinyl is really making a comeback, even sparking the major labels to press older catalogues on vinyl again. Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart all have put up vinyl sections in their stores. Independent record stores are again becoming the "hip" place to hang out for youth. (I just visited a record store in Nashville called Grimey's that had at least 1,000 kids show up when some local acts played in their back parking lot. It seemed like every one of them had a new vinyl purchase tucked under their arm). Who knows, perhaps Cream and Hit Parader will come out of forced retirement?

Yeah, I guess it just comes down to the fact that EVERYTHING is pretty much cyclical. Whether it's economic recessions we are talking about, or the need to hear music in a warm analog. I just hope that '90s junkie-chic and skinny "boy-looking" fashion models never come back in vogue. THAT was a bad period that should just be forgotten.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/04/_the_changing_rock_times.php

Duff said it!

Rocking the South, Dodging the City Council

As I revealed last week, I am back out on the road with Loaded. This is our first-ever foray into the U.S. rock marketplace. A band like Loaded is perhaps a risky endeavor, considering the more mainstream leanings of the American ear.

East and West Coast cities (Seattle, New York, Boston, L.A.) are places that harbor a music scene that allows for all types of bands to come through and find an audience. In the true spirit of Loaded, however, we did things the hard way and started our tour last week in the South. Huh?

Let me preface this subject by saying that I think the southern part of the U.S. is stunningly beautiful and its people extremely charming, affable, and friendly. The South, however, is a place a rock band might come after they have "broken" a bit worldwide, or at least nationwide. I'm not sure why, but the South is often the last place record companies try to market a band?perhaps because it is more spread out and rural, and hence it's tougher to spread the "word."

We started this tour in Nashville on a Saturday night playing a well-attended radio show. People seemed to know some of our songs, and it was pretty killer, actually. The following weekend we were booked on another radio show in Charleston. The trick was to fill in gigs between these two shows so that we could make enough money to pay for our travel, etc. . .

Playing clubs on a weeknight ANYWHERE is tough for a new band, and Loaded is certainly in this category. Getting local promoters to buy your show if you have just released a new record is a tenuous business at best. Since I have a bit of "lineage," I suppose that some of these clubs were willing to take the risk. I am glad that they did.

I am not saying that we filled up any of these clubs last week, but when you play a place like Jackson, Mississippi, on a Sunday night (with its local economy hit MUCH harder than most around this country), I'm not sure if a bigger band than us would have done much better. But it was the fans who showed up who really reinvigorated and energized my "call to rock," as it were. There was one guy in particular at that show who sang almost every word to every one of our songs, and I knew that this gig was important to him. I told him as much afterward, and I could see tears in his eyes.

Kris, a woman who writes in to this column, came to two of our gigs down South with her husband. Kris is actually a professor at a school down here somewhere, and it was really cool to meet a person who comments on this column.

It's not always easy to find a place to park our 70-foot bus, plus trailer. In Jacksonville, Florida, the promoter got us permission to park in front of City Hall in a nearby beach-town suburb. The problem was that a city council meeting was about to take place, and they had not been alerted to our status as Very Important Parkers. Mike Squires and I were the only ones on the bus when we heard a knock on our bus door. A city council woman asked who we were, and we politely explained our situation. She seemed OK with our answer and wished us a nice stay.

In actuality, she went straight into City Hall and brought out a bunch of her male council friends with the intent of getting us kicked off the property. By this time, however, I was tired, hot, lonely, and a tad fucking cranky! When one of the male council dweebs said in essence that I was lying about us having permission to park here?well, I kind of got in his face and asked him not to insult me any further and said I'd been touring for more than half my life and that we wouldn't do something as asinine as lying just to get a parking spot, especially in front of a shitty City Hall. This guy was a real greasy and schwarmy prick. He called the cops. Luckily, Squires knows how to handle the cops, and an escalation of my righteousness was averted. We had to move the bus, but that city council dude still has to deal with the fact that he has a small penis.

That night we all got tattooed with some variation of the Loaded logo. Heck, we are best friends AND it's the longest I've ever been in a band with the same guys, which in my world warrants a tattoo. The gig in Jacksonville kicked some serious ass.

In Augusta, Georgia, we played at a music store (Rock Bottom) acoustically in the afternoon and then to a small but exuberant crowd that night at a venue that was much too big for us. It didn't matter, though...we kicked some ass.

We finally got a night off in a town with fine dining and good ol' nerdy tourist stuff when we got to Charleston, South Carolina (where Fort Sumter is and the Civil War started, etc. . . ). This city now tops my list as the most beautiful city in the United States. Jeff Rouse and I went out for a real sit-down French-Creole dinner at a place called Rue du Jacques, and we felt suddenly civilized and somewhat less stinky and crass (being on a bus with seven dudes 24/7 creates a perfect storm of man-funk and foul language).

Our final gig of this leg of the tour was in front of six or seven thousand rockers fully buying into our style of Loaded rock. . . indeed, a great way to end.

Mike and Ashley McCready have asked Loaded to play this weekend at their yearly benefit concert for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America. Mike is a guy I have known since before Pearl Jam, at a time, unbeknown to me, that he first discovered that he suffered from Crohn's. This show helps send kids with the disease to a summer camp, a place where these kids can feel 'a part of' as opposed to 'alone in a crowd'. Mike and Ashley work very hard for this one show a year and I applaud them. The gig is this Saturday, 8pm, Showbox at the Market. It features Shadow (Mikes' first band from the '80's), Loaded, and Flight to Mars (Mikes' most excellent UFO cover band)!

As a nifty side note: The plural for "y'all" is simply "all y'all."

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/04/duff_mckagan_rocking_the_south.php

Summer at the McKagan Tent

By Duff McKagan

Thursday, May. 7 2009

Summer is fast approaching, and parents everywhere are faced with the perennial dilemma: What are we going to do with the kids? My wife and I are certainly no different when it comes to planning summertime family activity.

This past spring break sucked for my kids (and in turn, it sucked for Susan and I). First, our kids had two weeks off when all their friends had one. Secondly, our 11-year old daughter was hit with a week-long stomach flu and bronchitis. Lastly, it rained the whole fucking two weeks! What were we supposed to do? A guy can only take his daughters to the Hannah goddamn Montana movie so many times! My wife could only take them for a "mani/pedi" so many times!

Our girls are three years apart and at that prime sibling-rivalry stage. Don't take this wrong; my girls are very kind and caring people, but stuck together without much time apart? It is a perfect storm of fighting, drama, stomping around, and door-slamming ("She's had the computer longer than me!" "That's MY spot on the couch!"). This summer will be different, though, as my wife has figured out a genius and head-spinning schedule of every type of summer day-camp you could imagine. The girls are at the age when they MUST experience other influences BESIDES school, me, and their mother. HOWEVER!

Last year we McKagans took our first family overnight camping trip. I have tried a little bit of fishing on Lake Washington with the girls, but this car-camping trip was our first real outdoors-all-of-the-time-sleep-under-the-stars foray. The initial trick was to convince the girls that camping is fun! Try to explain to two female "tweeners" what the "utility" of being outdoors is. Or at least imagine what my conversation would have been like: "But Daddy, what do we DO when we get there? Is there Internet? No BATHROOM! WHAT!!!!" You get the drift.

In this day and age, with the Web, IMing, iChatting, and TiVo at everyone's fingertips, competing for rapt attention and having old-fashioned family fun can be a challenge for sure. My girls finally let me convince them to take them to a Mariners game last year. The best part of that experience was when they asked me to take them to another one (I guess the bribe of continuous ice cream and peanuts worked)! Yes, but convincing them about an overnight camping trip was going to be a real chore. You don't want to put your children in a car kicking and screaming against what you are about to do... everything, in a way, has kind of got to be their idea.

So the girls like shopping, right? One day last summer my wife and I decided to take them down to REI to try get them excited about things like raingear, tents, water filtration units, maps, and mosquito repellent. In the midst of this, my wife reminded me that these were things that I liked, and that perhaps the girls may need to look at camping clothes or breakfast foods. Oh, all right then...

We have a great western Cascades campsite book that gave us the lowdown on about 100 different places for us to try. My only criteria was that we would be far enough away from the urban crawl so that our campground wasn't a hub for teenage weekend drinking, and/or wasn't close to one of our Oprah-made-famous western Washington meth labs. I remembered a place that some friends and I escaped to from an eastern Washington camping trip when Mt. St. Helens blew back in 1980. I should explain that first, I suppose.

When I was 15 or so, a bunch of us punkers decided to go camping (read, DRINKING) over at Sun Lakes State Park near Grand Coulee. On our second day there, the mountain erupted, sending millions of acres of ash in a northeasterly direction... directly at us! We headed back west and found a cool and ash-free camping area back near Index.

This is where family McKagan would go, with me dispensing my wisdom and stories of glory and triumph during the whole car trip up. Susan and the girls think I am cool enough, I suppose, but my storytelling and their imbued messages at times miss the mark. Often I will find myself painted into a corner, as it were, realizing that in too many stories my punchlines involve some illegal activity that I can't tell my kids about. I usually end up fumbling some sort of half-baked half-truth just to finish the line of thought so that the girls don't get suspicious. This trip was no different...

Setting up our camp was probably a fairly goofy-looking affair, if someone was watching from afar. Look, man, I have been touring and whatnot for most of my adult life, and the outdoorsman in me vacated way back when it was still safe to get out. My daughters asked me what the strange sound coming from beyond the trees was. I suddenly was aware that that still and calming sound was the very river I had camped on 23 years earlier. In all the rush and bluster to get where we were going, I had forgotten that this trip was planned for the sublime and tranquil reason of simple family fun in nature. I guess it's not just my girls who were, and are, caught up in their lives. I too had forgotten how relaxing and serene a fast-running river can be. My jaw muscles relaxed, and I walked my family down to the river's edge, water cups in hand.

After dinner the dark began to set in, and as we all sat around the campfire with our marshmallows slowly burning at their edges, the ghost stories from my childhood came rushing back. Perhaps it was the tightest I have ever had both my girls next to me, ever. My wife read to us all that night in the tent, and I am told I was the first to fall asleep.

Seriously, Who Cares?

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan
Thursday, May. 14 2009

I've recently noticed some things in the media and TV that have me asking myself one simple question: who fucking cares?! Miss America and Perez Hilton. The Apprentice, Kim Kardashian, Mariah Carey, Brad and Angelina, Jen and John...ugh.

The girl from La Jolla who recently caused an uproar during the Miss USA Pageant. Apparently Perez Hilton, one of the judges, asked Miss California what she thought of gay marriage. First of all, it's such a predictable setup, with the outwardly gay guy asking the vocal Christian girl her thoughts on same-sex marriage. Of course she will toe the party line and say that she believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Of course Perez will feign shock and disbelief. Of course every major network will feature this story and unearth nude or scantily clad pictures of Miss La Jolla. Of course, of course, of course... the shit sells. The result? Perez becomes a bigger celebrity, and the Miss USA Pageant makes much-needed headlines. The new Miss USA will be a HUGE celebrity, no doubt selling tons of future copies of US and Star magazines. She will be in demand and garner big-money appearance fees (of which Donald Trump, as the head of the Miss USA Pageant, will get the lion's share). Everyone wins. Did anyone think this was a spontaneous occurrence? The only real losers are those fighting for same-sex marriage issues in our courts. This whole deal has cast a Christian-right light on this thing?those in political office may be afraid to do battle because of their constituency. A shame for sure.

The Kardashian show is one that I actually may cut a little slack, if not only for the reason that we all know it is scripted. I mean, there is no way that any of you readers would actually take a cue from this show and break up with a girlfriend or boyfriend via text on a BlackBerry, right? It is a con job how badly they treat their mom on the show, right? The zany antics on that show, while they do sort of personify the materialism that just soaks L.A. culture, are just prewritten drama-makers. You guys DO know it IS scripted... RIGHT?

I was listening to BJ's morning show on KISW this week, and heard him just RANTING about the wrongs that were done on the finale of The Apprentice. BJ is a very deep and extremely intelligent man, so I assume he was kind of "putting it on" for the sake of his listeners. Maybe I am wrong or maybe I am right. The point is, even if he is just playing to the crowd, it's apparent that the crowd must be interested or he wouldn't be playing it up so much. Hey wait...The Apprentice is another Donald Trump show! What the hell is going on?!

As I write this piece, I am sitting here at the airport waiting for another flight (I fly a LOT). I suppose a guilty pleasure of mine sits right there in Hudson Booksellers' magazine racks under "Entertainment." At least every other week (if not oftener), either Brad and Jen are getting back together, Brad and Angelina are breaking up, Jen is adopting or pregnant, or Angelina is getting a new tattoo. Good stuff. There has got to be an almost voyeuristic pleasure or thrill for the mainstream consumer to get these rags by the absolute truckloads. Hey, I am guilty myself of peeking once in a while at this stuff. The "They Are Just Like Us" section in Star is fucking hilarious to me. Really? They go grocery shopping ... just like us? Change diapers? Pick their noses? I think it would be killer if they caught some celebrity masturbating. It would read "They rub one out ... just like us!" So endearing, really.

In the UK, they have a type of newspaper nicknamed "red tops" for the red border that adorns them. Papers like The Sun and The Daily Mirror don't even really pretend to be telling much of the truth. Oh, there ARE real and factual financial, political, and world-affairs stories within their pages, but they're not until waaay back in the middle of the paper somewhere. What kicks ass, too, is that all these papers (except the Times of London, really) have nude "Page 3 girls" to go with your morning coffee or tea. I say Seattle Weekly should try this. What say you?

I was pretty bummed out last year when CNN Headline News decided to air their "celebrity news" hour at the exact time I usually tune in to catch up with the latest actual world and national news. Sure, on the East Coast, it comes on at 11 a.m. (a sort of news "dead zone"), but us West Coast people get it at 8 a.m.?right when you just want to get caught up on shit and then get out the door. I guess entertainment news IS big news nowadays. Blah.

I know that my column IS for the most part an entertainment read, not based on primary sources and often devoid of fact. Oh, wait. Yeah, maybe from now on I should start writing about the Octomom, weight-loss summer-body tips, and "Who Wore It Better?"

It's Been That Kind of a Week

By Duff McKagan

Thursday, May. 21 2009

Last week for me kind of ran a whole sort of gamut as far how different some of the activities, discussions, and even inner-self discussions I experienced. Do you ever have one of those weeks where you just kind of look back and go. "huh?" Let me explain.

On Monday night, my phone rang at home (nobody calls me at home anymore). My wife picked up and she said it was for me. Apparently, I have given the OK at some point to be live on a hour-long financial AM radio show in Los Angeles (not a small market!). So there I was, live on the radio, with the host immediately peppering me with pretty pointed questions on my thoughts for economic recovery.

Let me back up a second and tell those of you that don't know that I have a weekly financial column at Playboy.com. It's nothing too heavy or groundbreaking, rather I try to educate and explain complicated financial jargon to the readers in hopes that we can all have a sort of leg up as these markets begin their slow climb to health. A few years back, I DID go to the Alber's School of Business at Seattle U., but a business guru it did not make of me.

Okay, so there I am being asked live on the radio if I thought everyone should sell everything and just buy gold (NO! Don't EVER put all of your dough into one specific asset!), and if I thought it was a good time for someone to start a business (depends on the circumstance of course), if I thought this spending by our administration was a gateway to American socialism (many aspects of the U.S. economic system are already socialist as we have borrowed things that have worked from other countries over the years. Where do you think Social Security came from?), or what things I would tell Obama to help curb this recession ( he is a LOT smarter than me). I came out of that interview feeling a little dirty in that I felt used and part of the problem. Again, in my Playboy column, I try to allay fears, not add to them.

The next day, it was my turn to be radio guy. For some reason, KISW thought it would be a good idea to give me my own hour-long commercial-free radio show. Now, we all probably think we can do a lot better than some of those jerks on the radio, but to actually do it is an entirely different exercise. I was so nervous that in the first segment (where I interviewed Lemmy from Motorhead, my fucking hero), you could audibly hear my words quivering just a bit. Lemmy saved that bit.

Next up, I had Martin Feveyear (Loaded's own producer, tour manager, and live sound mixer) do some two-part jokes with me. Martin is one funny bastard and just having him there in the studio put me at ease. Nikki Sixx was my next guest, and that dude has ALWAYS been cool to me. We talked about the upcoming Cruefest and he told me that they would be performing the Dr. Feelgood record from beginning to end. He also told me of a time that I drove his Maserati and put a scratch in it. (I don't even remember driving any Maserati. EVER!). I was a wee bit embarrassed to say the least.

Sean Kinney came next, and if you've never heard this dude talk before, go to the KISW site and download the podcast of the show. He was both hilarious (playing bongos with McConaughey?!) and deep (he spoke of how the new Alice In Chains record was a personal catharsis regarding the passing of Layne). For the last segment, Mike McCready was kind enough to come down and play "Wild Horses" with my radio band, the Rainmakers (aka Jeff Rouse and Mike squires from Loaded).

Later that week, I got to experience one of the most proud moments in my life when my daughter Grace got up and sang a song with me at a school fundraiser. I thought I was going to start bawling, but rock dudes don't cry (unless they watch The Notebook or that Tiger movie that came out back in 2001).

I had an amazing gig the other night here in NYC...probably Loaded's best ever. We were joined onstage by Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, a virtuoso on guitar and a first-class all-around guy!

I've been starting to second-guess my role here at Seattle Weekly, too. This has thus far been a great experience for me as I have been able to use a whole and other part of my brain when it comes time to writing my weekly thing here. But there is a line here that I will not cross. That line is where I don't ever, under any circumstances, give away too much about myself. It's almost as if I've developed a whole new persona and that is who I choose to portray. What if I did in fact publicly inform you all, too much about myself? Maybe it is time for me to go back to being the quiet and sullen rock guy that I think is a bit more comfortable for many to accept (not that I have EVER looked for anyone's acceptance as a whole). I dunno. This is something I have not even spoken to my "guy" at the Weekly about. They have bent over backwards helping me along with my band and have guided my writing style with intelligence and candor.

Maybe the shock and sexiness of me having a weekly column has indeed worn off and I am not quite sure of what my role here is anymore. Don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy getting feedback from you who read this and comment. I REALLY have grown quite fond of the sarcasm and general abuse I have taken at the hands of some of you readers. I guess though, I've got to figure some stuff out.
Cheers,

Duff

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/05/its_been_that_kind_of_a_week.php

You Can't Fall From The Floor

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, May. 28 2009

I woke up on the bus last Friday morning after a great night of well-deserved sleep. The previous night in Wantaugh, Long Island marked the end of an eight-in-a-row run that took Loaded from Detroit and weaved us through to the Northeast. Often, it's the THINGS and PEOPLE I see on the road that make for much more interesting stories than the common backstage view.

As I stumbled out of the bus, I found myself in the parking lot of a quaint bayside hotel called the Freeport Inn and Boatel. Sound familiar? This is the one-and-the-same place where Joey Buttafuoco and his "Long Island Lolita" Amy Fisher had their much-publicized daytime trysts back in the early '90s. But it wasn't this experience alone that made that day interesting for me.

Coming around the back end of the bus was a man who, obvious to me, had something to do with the hotel. He introduced himself as the general manager and commenced to show me to the caf? to get some coffee. Joseph Creamer, 29, spoke with rapid-fire excitement about what he was going to do with this hotel and the things he hoped to do for the community to help bring it back around from this latest recession. He also told me of his new position as vice president of the Freeport Chamber of Commerce, and the problems he was having with the old-guard mayor and his ilk.

Right on the bay in Freeport, there sits an ugly and dilapidated two-story building used only once a month by the Fire Department for exercises. Around this building, and in fact in the whole waterfront area, the shoreline seems dominated by industrial storage units and an old electrical plant. Basically, nothing like the waterfront settings we enjoy around Seattle in places like Lake Washington, West Seattle, Magnolia, etc. I'm sure most city planners would salivate at the chance to redo Freeport's waterfront into an attraction rather than an eyesore.

Joseph Creamer has just this sort of thing in mind, as he is presently applying for alcohol permits for the Freeport Inn and Boatel. He sees a hip, trendy, and ultimately upscale restaurant row in his town's future, creating a revenue stream for the city through higher property taxes and alcohol licenses and creating service and marina jobs. He wants to turn the Fire Department building into a big catering hall, and in turn rent a space in neighboring Hempstead for the F.F.D. Both towns would win.

Freeport, and Long Island as a whole, has seen some of the worst unemployment rate increases in the country. Forward thinking and job creation are the exact thing this area needs, with people like Joe Creamer to lead us up and out of this recession. Young people who see a light at the end of the tunnel instead of cronies to appease.

I've spoken here before of the book The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes. This book not only tells a thorough economic tale of the Depression, but also highlights the missteps and triumphs that got us out of that financial woe. The amazing thing to me about this book is the uncanny parallels that we now encounter. There's a great quote from 1929, just prior to the first stock-market crash, by Nelson Rockefeller: "I knew that the market was over-inflated and run by amateurs when the man shining my shoes one day gave me a stock recommendation. I went back to the office and sold every holding that I owned." Didn't we all in fact get a little too cocky with our perceived stock-market prowess and using our houses as personal ATMs? Guys like Jim Cramer and his Mad Money are indeed much of the problem and very little of the solution.

As we wrap up this U.S. tour, I have been honored and enriched to play little places like Allentown, Pa. and Huntington, W.Va.. In towns like these, they have long gotten used to the short end of the stick, so pulling themselves out of muddy and dark places like these economic times is almost commonplace. These will be the towns that have the fastest recovery, in my opinion, because they did not get so caught up in economic hoopla in the first place. They have long since learned the lesson of humility, and have a resultant forthrightness and strength.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/05/duff_mckagan_you_cant_fall_fro.php#more

Midwest Rock and Saying Good-Bye

By Duff McKagan Thursday, Jun. 4 2009 @ 1:40AM

The ongoing saga of Loaded's tour continues for me and the fellas for now and the foreseeable future. This week we were included on the bills of some of the bigger rock festivals in the Midwest. They do summer rock festivals like they do college football: BIG. Slipknot and Korn have been the staple headliners for most of these gigs, and while both these acts are definitely a sight to watch, it is often a surprise opener you've never heard of who steals the day (at least for me).

Because I was leaving for Europe after this last weekend and therefore would not be seeing my family until June 14, I pre-investigated if I could bring my family to these Midwest festivals. (Touring for me is mostly a test of rub-raw heartbreak and longing for my family. Make no mistake, I'm a big boy and no sobbing wimp, but I realize that, well, touring IS our livelihood. It just sucks being so far from my people.)

My daughter Grace was going to be having her half birthday; a thing both of my kids have come up with so that they can celebrate their summer birthdays in the spring with their school friends. (We've found that summer birthdays wreak havoc on kid attendance, as everyone is off gallivanting somewhere or other. Besides, the makeup melts off the clown we hire every year because of the all-day sun exposure that our house endures.) Back on topic... Since Grace was having her party last weekend, it would be a perfect opportunity to bring Mae, my youngest, with me. At 8 years old, Mae is a cagey veteran of plane travel and tour-bus smarts.

Now when you have eight males traveling together, a sort of dumbing-down phenomenon happens. It seems that instead of using well-thought-out and articulate adjectives, guys stuck together for a length of time will ALWAYS resort to "fucking," "fucked," "fucked up," "fuck yeah," or simply just "fuck." It usually takes a couple of days for me to curb this habit whenever I get home. And here I am bringing my sweet 8-year-old girl into the eye of the hurricane, if you will. I'll just say this: If we had a swear jar, Mae would have come out of this weekend flush with dough. Instead, she will just look at the person swearing and kind of give them a look, as if to say "Really?"

To my kids, by far the coolest thing about touring is the bus. Every bunk has its own little TV, and all buses these days have Direct TV. They couldn't really give a crap that I might be playing in front of 20,000 people?they've seen that a million times. No, EVERYTHING about the tour bus is cool to them. Even doing their homework on the bus is cool. After our shows, Mae and I played hide-and-seek and a new game she invented with a hacky-sack. Our nights were spent cuddled up in the back lounge watching a family movie together. She sleeps in the bunk above mine, and likes it when I reach my hand up to hold hers so that she feels secure and thus falls asleep knowing I am right there. I had to say good-bye to her at the airport in Des Moines, Iowa, as she flew back to L.A. with a trusted friend and I off to Finland. She wanted to come with me and not go back home (and back to school). We really had a great daddy-daughter bonding, and I miss her as I write this....

I've got to say that I saw a few outstanding bands on this little Midwest swing. At the top of the list was Corey Taylor, doing solo gigs with some friends he grew up with. You may know Corey as the lead singer from Slipknot and Stone Sour, but I know him as a guy who just likes to rock and have fun doing it. His band out-Loaded Loaded as they came on stage to the Magnum P.I. theme song doing a choreographed dance, and then proceeded to play "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince. They CRUSHED it! The heavy-metal crowd was further bewildered when they saw their Slipknot hero go from the theme song from Cheers into "Pig" by Nine Inch Nails. It was absolutely superb. To me, when you can flat-out rock and also take the piss out of yourself...then you are doing something right. Another band you all should check out is Parlor Mob?a sort of MC5-ish band that gets the fuck down!

As I write, I am somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean heading to Helsinki. The flight crew is a bit surly, it seems. I must have slept through an incident or something, but when I just asked for a cup of coffee, the flight attendant snapped at me that "Patience is a virtue!" Uh...OK. Flight attending is one of those professions where they can treat you like crap and there is no real recourse for the customer. So you just kind of sit back and take it. I could sure as fuck use a cup of fucking coffee, though! FUCK! Sorry, Mae...

As a killer side note: I got published in The New York Times this past Tuesday. The only bummer is that it went in as "by Michael McKagan." I really am not sure why. Heck, my own mom never called me Michael. Oh well...The Times is definitely a bucket-list item I can now cross off.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/06/duff_mckagan_midwest_rock_and.php

A Finnish Beginning to Summer

By Duff McKagan Thursday, Jun. 11 2009 @ 1:34AM

Late spring in Europe and the U.K. means only one thing for the music lover over here: FESTIVAL SEASON! Of course, these festivals are good for both the fans AND the bands that play in front of them, as festivals will usually put an act in front of more people than they could otherwise garner by simply doing a club tour. This season for Loaded has thus far been, well, . . . colorful, let's say.

It's always great to mix some club or theater gigs into your tour schedule if you are out doing the festivals. The beginning of June can be (and usually is) cold and wet in northern Europe. For whatever reason, whether with Velvet Revolver or Loaded, we've started the season more often up north, instead of, say, Spain. Loaded took it to the extreme this past week by starting things off in Finland, with two club shows in Helsinki and Oulu and an outdoor festival in Tampere.

Geographically, Tampere, Finland, sits at about the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. If you know anything about Alaska, you know that it is not shocking to find freezing rain or even snow at the beginning of June. These were the conditions we found ourselves in as we hit the stage at this outdoor rock festival. Fuck, it was cold! For us in bands, it is only semi-miserable, as we will at least be warm later at night in our bus whilst rolling off to some other destination. But for most attending the weekend-long rock and pop festivals over here in Europe and the UK, the night will end in a soggy, freezing tent. Drunk, wet, cold, and muddy . . . nothing goes better with "rock" (except maybe the beginnings of the infection that sets in on that not-too-thought-out tattoo or piercing you got at the festival . . . after waiting in line for five hours. But I digress).

I have said before that it is often during festival season that I actually get to see bands play for the first time. Soundtrack of Our Lives is a band from Sweden that I'd heard about for a long time but had never seen. We played with them at both the Rock am Ring AND Rock am Park festivals in Germany. It's always a pleasure to share a stage with a band that you like. It is even better when a group of musicians inspires you. Soundtrack of Our Lives are MY find of the season so far. Another band I really liked is called Biffy Clyro, which has been big in the UK for a while, for good reason . . . a really cool and inventive band.

Somehow, Loaded seems to fit somewhere in between when it comes to actually labeling what we are, genre-wise. For this reason, we may be put on an "alternative" stage at one festival, and a "metal" or "rock" stage at another. We will also be doing six gigs over here in direct support of M?tley Cr?e, which should be a blast for sure. As I write this, I am sitting in a club in Lucerne, Switzerland, getting ready to do one of our own shows. Lucerne is surrounded by beautiful mountains, and reminds me of someplace just east of our very own Cascades.

Today is Wednesday in Port au Crans, Switzerland. We play the Caribana Festival with ZZ Top right on Lake Geneva. I really feel like a writer right now: sitting next to a beautiful shore and sipping espresso with some locals. The language here is a soft and gentle Fran?ais, and a welcome relief. The Latin-based languages are somehow easier for me to grasp, and I enjoy learning new words and phrases in French or Spanish. The show tonight is sold out, and the weather is warm with a gentle and fresh breeze from the lake. Mont Blanc is right across the lake from where I sit.

Two days ago in Zurich, I took a train into the center of town with Mike and Geoff Reading. We strolled around and looked at some guitars, bought toiletries, etc. We noticed a high bluff that promised a good vantage point from which to view Zurich and its amazing architecture, and we huffed our way up to it. Because of the hectic touring schedule we keep, none of us had quite gotten over our jet lag, and this high viewpoint also offered a wide bulkhead that we all laid down upon for an hour or so. Once we got up to leave and walk back down the hill, I noticed a public toilet and told the fellas that I had to pee. Now, in a men's bathroom, there is a sort of protocol that usually goes unnoticed?when a man uses a urinal, he doesn't look up and around at every new person who comes into the public restroom. When I entered this one, all three men looked up at me. When they saw I was there to actually USE the bathroom and not "cruise," there seemed to be a collective disappointment that I wasn't on "the team." Sorry, fellas, I am spoken for.

My family comes to Europe tomorrow, and I am more than excited to see them. Tomorrow in London, Squires and I will play live on the radio to something like eight million listeners. No pressure. Later that day, I will present an award to the Manic Street Preachers at the MOJO Awards (a big British awards show). On Friday, Loaded plays the Download Festival, probably the pinnacle of any rock band's career. I have played it with GN'R, and twice with VR. Next week? We start our European tour with M?tley Cr?e. Oh, the stories I could tell . . .

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/06/a_finnish_beginning_to_summer.php

Meet the Roadies. Sorry, "Road Crew"

By Duff McKagan Wednesday, Jun. 17 2009

Out on the road and touring as a rock band, artists wholeheartedly rely on their crews. The term "roadie" is thought of as an archaic and demeaning term, replaced now with guitar tech, drum tech, sound engineer, production manager, and wardrobe person.

As an artist, you make the record, book the tours, get the T-shirts made (merch), tour for an average of 14 months, then go home to rest and make another record. If you are a professional crew person, however, the road NEVER ends.

Since we have been out on this M?tley tour, I have been reunited with a few people who I have worked with over the last 22 years of touring:

Beth has done wardrobe for probably 25 years. She worked for us in GN'R when we could finally afford that luxury. Years later, she worked for Velvet Revolver. The Rolling Stones and AC/DC have been her main gigs for most of these 25 years, and right now she is doing this M?tley Cr?e gig. Beth has known me through all my personal ups and downs, and, for the most part, has witnessed me morphing from a hopeless alcoholic to a hapless parent. Beth has been privy, too, to my daughters' growing up; now my 11-year-old Grace stands a few inches taller than little Beth.

"Viggy" Vignoli is a very interesting sort and absolutely fascinating to talk to. At the moment, Vig is Tommy Lee's drum tech and does programming in the studio. He started doing this type of gig when he was 15, working for Whitney Houston when she first started in 1985. Vig finally left Whitney when things got out of control during the Bobby Brown marriage fiasco, and moved on to Cameo (Vig did the "Word Up" tour!), Prince, Sevendust, and now Tommy Lee, to name just a few.

Life on the road certainly takes a certain personal constitution which you either do or don't have. The folks in the road crew rarely go to a hotel bed after the show, and must hope for a locker-room shower at the waiting venue. If you stay in the game long enough, however, you can command the big bucks. Top tour managers can earn from $8,000 to $12,000 a week (Madonna's and Cher's tours are the real high-paying gigs, but the demand on one's time and sanity must be taken into account).

Our Loaded crew right now consists of Martin Feveyear as tour manager/sound engineer, Stadi as guitar/bass tech, Ryan as guitar tech/drum tech, and Dennis as merch guy. I don't really know anyone's last name except for Martin's, but living together on a bus day in and day out, you get to know just about everything else about these peoples' lives?and their significant body odors and hygiene habits. Loaded is a low-budget affair at best, and the band and crew work real hard for mediocre pay.

Ryan plays another very significant role for all of us. He has taken it as a personal challenge to be our "Johnny Go Time." That is, he reminds us, when times are hard and we're tired, that this is about fucking ROCK AND ROLL and it's time to throw down. Ryan has various ways of getting us up for a gig, including throwing out enthusiastic David Lee Roth high kicks or exhorting how "rad" '60s band Pentagram is. The guy just lives it, period.

A favorite Ryan moment of mine was in Finland. No one had really slept for something like 65 hours and we had a gig to do. Ryan literally picked himself off the ground and staggeringly gave us a DLR kick to remind us that it was indeed time to rock, whether we were seeing sleep-deprivation-induced "trails" or not. Ryan kicks ass!

Stadi is an even-keeled German transplant to London. Nothing ever really seems to faze him, except for the day last week when we did a gig in Switzerland with ZZ Top. Stadi loves him some Billy Gibbons, and sheepishly asked me if I would introduce them. I did. Stadi had a wide grin on his face for the next three days. Ryan, of course, was not as shy, and last I saw he had enlisted ALL the ZZ Top guys to help him make a video Web log for his YouTube site.

Martin pretty much holds this whole thing together. Without Martin, there probably would be no Loaded. From guiding the musical direction of the band to recording us to doing our live sound to tour-managing us, Martin does it all. Like Geoff and I, Martin is a father, and having the heartache of missing the ones you love added to a stressful work and travel schedule can really fuck with you. Martin somehow finds a way to gather himself when we need him and shine a guiding beacon for us all to follow.

If you are a casual fan of music and like to go to shows once and a while, take a moment to look at the production and take note of the lights, PA, amps, drums, and stage. Know that there are hardworking people who take a lot of pride in making that show the best it can possibly be for you on that particular night. Being an artist and creating an idea that can be then taken on the road is one thing. The men and women in road crew are the ones who make the rest happen. I raise my glass high to them.

As a postscript: Ryan is actually one Ryan "Go Time" Moore from Portland. Facebook him to see some of his most hilarious Webisodes.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/06/meet_the_roadies_sorry_road_cr.php

Tour Bus Logic and Our Obesity Situation

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Jun. 25 2009

I think with all of us, no matter how hard we try to remain politically correct and mind our social manners, it remains well-nigh impossible to police our private thoughts. I've been doing a lot of well-documented traveling lately, and with it comes plenty of time in the air.

Martin Feveyear (our band's tour manager) and I were having a philosophical discussion on the bus over our morning coffee. Apparently, there is more and more talk among airlines on whether to charge, um, "wide" people for an extra seat. The airlines are further talking about installing a limited amount of wide seats just for those people who fit the profile, pun intended. If you travel as much as Martin and I do, it's more than likely you have been squeezed into a tight place next to a person who has no business sitting in a seat meant for the thin-ish. It's just plain uncomfortable for both parties involved.

How would someone arbitrarily make the decision about who would or would not have to purchase this more expensive (for sure) seat? As this conversation broadens on our tour bus, there are differing opinions. Here's a sample of what I heard as the guys sauntered down to the bus kitchen: "It's not someone's fault if they are fat!" "There is always the excuse of a 'thyroid problem.' That's bullshit!" I know that everyone reading this piece will have their own strong opinion on this matter, but these two opinions probably shed light on the two furthest ends of the spectrum.

I must say, though, for argument's sake, it is stunningly obvious to the casual observer that Europe does not have the obesity problem we have in the States. There are no super-size options at fast-food places over here, and the average meal is much smaller in every European country and in the UK. There was a piece in London's Sun newspaper last week about this American super-size phenomenon and the three British actors who had gone to L.A. to shoot a movie. All three came back to London with noticeable extra weight. They blamed the big meal portions they had gotten used to in the States.

Obesity in America is a killer for sure, and subjects like this airplane-seat dilemma, while not popular I am sure, must be addressed. A parent's bad eating and health habits get passed down to their children. I have heard so many people say that they don't have the time to work out. Often these are the same people who play hours of video games, spend too much time on the computer, or just watch too much fucking TV, all the while eating shit food.

In America, we don't tell our citizens how to live, but maybe there could be some sort of incentive for getting reasonably fit?other than, you know, a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes, a longer life span, fewer joint problems, etc. Maybe charging more for an airplane ticket IS the right thing to do after all. Charging more now may just be that last straw that pushes just a few of us to turn our health habits around.

I am stunned and mystified every time I'm at the movies to see just how stupidly HUGE the sizes of popcorn and sodas are. We all watch as person after person gets the large everything "for just 50 cents more" or whatever the hell it is. The amount of calories and fat in a large tub of buttered popcorn could sustain a person stranded on a desert island for three weeks!

I have no tidy ending for this column. It's really only meant to spur discussion. As I write, I am in a prop plane flying over the Dolomite mountain range from Munich to Bologna, Italy. What I'd give for a parachute, a sleeping bag, boots, a pack, an ice-axe, crampons...and Tim Medvetz, of course!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/06/tour_bus_logic_and_our_obesity.php

Inspiring And Painful

Thursday, Jul. 2 2009

So I have finally arrived back home in Seattle after being on the road for the last two months. Traveling and playing gigs sometimes gives me a chance to witness or be a part of some pretty spectacular events. Whether getting a chance to see another inspiring band play or slipping and falling in a unfamiliar shower, life on the road is never without a daily event, it seems. Here I will list a few events that have highlighted my last eight weeks:

1) As I have previously written about, I had a chance to see Soundtrack of our Lives twice in Germany. If you are looking for music to set a tone for your summer, may I suggest getting Communion, SOOL's new double record. Super-cool and vibey.

2) Was bestowed the honor of sitting at the "big kids' table" with Billy Gibbons and Jeff Beck at the MOJO Awards in London: Whoa...! Was also given the pleasure of presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award to the Manic Street Preachers that night. Pretty damn cool for sure.

3) Lost a bag: Well, in truth, I didn't lose it, Iberia Airlines did. It's been gone for some 12 days now, and the chances of ever getting it back are looking bleaker and bleaker. I have made four in-person lost baggage reports at various Iberia counters across Europe. It seems now, however, that they have no record of me OR my bag. Friends, don't let friends fly Iberia. The worst customer service I have ever witnessed. GIVE ME MY FUCKING BAG BACK!!!! Oh...sorry, Weekly readers.

4) Lost a tooth: Yep, the same day I lost my bag, half of one of my back teeth just broke off. That same day we played in 70 mph winds in Zaragosa, Spain. The wind was so strong that it blew me off the microphone a couple of times and blew cymbal stands over, etc. . . The sound out front must have been atrocious. I attribute this triumvirate of bad luck to the fact that my wife and kids had just left after their visit to me out there on tour. I was sad and apparently vulnerable to asshole bad luck.

5) Fell in the shower: Or maybe it was a "quartet" of bad luck. A couple of days later in Cologne, Germany, I decided to get a hotel on my own and fly to our next gig (as opposed to staying on the bus and getting more bedbugs . . . you heard me right). I was going to sleep in a nice bed, work out in a nice hotel gym, and take a soft, warm shower with real soap. I had had a tough weekend prior (what with the winds, lost tooth, lost bag, and all), and just wanted a little "me time." Well, I slept great, had an awesome workout, AND the shower rocked! As I stepped out, however, my foot landed on a wet part of the bathroom floor, and I went flying. I broke my toe and banged the back of my head. Glamorous . . .

6) Saw NINE INCH NAILS: The reason I spell their name with all large caps is certainly not because I didn't spell-check. These guys are certainly the best live rock band out there this summer. Stripped down to just four members, they are raw and made me want to break stuff. Last summer's NIN show at KeyArena was amazing because of the scope and enormity of the undertaking (eight band guys and the biggest light show on the road back then). Last Friday's show in Milan, as I watched from side-stage, shed light on just how good their musicianship and songwriting is. The new drummer kid from the UK is nothing short of prodigious. I could easily write a whole article alone on just the first two songs of that evening. A truly great show, and it didn't suck to be me that night.

7) Visited Amsterdam and didn't get high: If you can get through this town and not have at least an urge for a hit off a hash pipe, then you are indeed superhuman. For a guy like me, who has a king-sized sweet tooth, the number of chocolate and ice-cream stores per capita are a great bonus of having a largely high-on-weed environment.

Cool Czech this out: While visiting a very old church in Prague with my wife and kids, I found out that the 1300-era Czech army was one of the first to use psychological warfare. When the Czech army were at the gates of the then-walled city of Milan, they made babies shaped out of dough to roast over their open fires in sight of the petrified Milanese. The Italians surmised that these brutish Czechs ate their own babies and must be heathen animals. The gates to Milan went down REAL fast, and the Czechs won without a fight. Sick, but genius!

9) Got the secondary security check . . . again: Hey, U.S. Immigration Services, I got one question . . . PROFILE MUCH?! It is only when I re-enter my home country (which I LOVE), that my stomach tightens when the plane lands. My port of entry was the Detroit airport on Monday, and the result was no different. I got sent to "secondary inspection." When you come into a new country, you must first get your luggage and then proceed through customs (you recheck your bags afterward if you have a connecting flight, which I did). Usually they wait until you have your bags and are standing in line for a cursory look-through of your passport. This time they didn't even wait for me to get my luggage before the officer came up to me and put a blue line through my entry paperwork. The officer probably thought he had a "live one" when he scoped me out. He was truly bummed when he found nothing in my baggage or clothing. I smiled and wished him an excellent day.

10) Got home to my family: This part for me is simply the best part of the story.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/07/duff_mckagan_rock_and_roll.php

Summer Vacation, the Black Bag, and a Mini-Tirade (or Two)

By Duff McKagan Thursday, Jul. 9 2009 @ 1:03AM

"Is this a Mr. McKagan?" said a voice on the other end of my telephone.

"Yes," I replied, thinking it was a telemarketer who had somehow gotten my cell-phone number, and I gripped for a pitch. "My name is Kenny M., and I work at American Airlines. Are you missing a black bag?" And so began the conclusion of the mystery of my lost black bag, gone for some 17 days after an Iberia flight from Prague to Pamplona, Spain.

Kenny M. was calling from Dallas, Texas (nowhere near Europe) and American Airlines has no relation or partnership to Iberia Airlines. My bag just showed up one day, with no ID card, at Americans' central baggage service depot. Kenny said that apparently my bag had been around the world, and that in circumstances where there is no ID, he must get inside the bag and look for clues. In a vest pocket, he found a receipt for a Hilton at the Helsinki, Finland airport ... he called them. Luckily for me, I had filled out a Hilton Awards card at that Hilton on that stay and they had ALL of my information, including my cell-phone number.

I know when I wrote about my lost bag last week, some of you responded that it was just a material possession and that at least I was healthy and blah, blah, blah. But in this bag, there was all of my good-luck rock gear:

1. My leather bracelet that I'd worn for every gig in the past six years.
2. My "Chrome Hearts' leather vest given to me by a close family friend and worn at every gig I've played over the past three or so years.
3. Gloves given to me by Hanoi Rocks' Michael Monroe.
4. My ear-infection medicine (a rock-tour staple).
5. Rock pants.
6. Smell-good stuff (another rock-tour staple that staves off the scent of a wet leather vest and bracelet, and not-too-often-laundered rock pants).
7. My gym clothes and Nike tennis shoes.
8. Shave kit.

So, when I went down to FedEx on Alaskan Street to pick up my bag (NOT Alaskan Way as I found out after driving around SoDo for 45 minutes), I was a bit amused to find my tennis shoes missing and my medications strewn throughout my bag. The FedEx guy there informed me that customs or airline personnel will often do this with someone's medications after they find that there is nothing that will either get them high or that they can sell to a drug user. The missing tennis shoes were new, and I suppose some jackass down there wore size 11. What most amused me about this was that the leather vest that made it back to me unmolested was worth $5,000! That vest was the pure and simple reason I thought the damn bag was gone in the the first place. Suckers!

A Little Green Day

Last week, Green Day came to town, and I have become a big fan recently after I saw their alter-ego band the Foxboro Hot Tubs at the Roxy in Hollywood last year. The FHT showcase how good. Mike, Billy, and Trey's musicianship is AND how loose and fun rock-and-roll is supposed to be. Green Day know how to write the hits. And after seeing them live, it's obvious that they've somehow maintained a punk ethic well into mainstream success. As a fellow musician, I appreciate the art of writing a good song, and that is what these guys do so well, time and time again. It was a great gig for sure, and impressive to see KeyArena sold out.

A Little Rant

I read posts to this column and others, made so often by anonymous people, that they don't like this band or that. While I certainly applaud a person's free will and opinion, it gets tiring to see a person so chickenshit as not to put up their own e-mail or at least first name and last initial. If you have opinions about music I talk about in this space, at least have the balls to ID yourself ... I do. Moving on ...

A Little Music

This weekend, I hope to see two shows: Roxy Epoxy at El Corazon on Friday, and
70 Proof at the West Seattle Street Fair on Saturday.

A Little Sun

I have gone east for the week, choosing to start my well-deserved summer vacation up near Lake Chelan. My daughter Mae is upstairs in our cabin right now, playing an old acoustic guitar that I brought along. We hope to get a boat and go "sea couching" later today (a "sea couch" is our name for anything larger that an inner tube that we can pull behind a boat and floats).

Happy Summer to everyone reading this. I am pleased as could be to be back home after so much time away. My family have returned to our normal place and that is, at this moment, a place in the sun.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/07/summer_vacation_the_black_bag.php

Can You Hear Me Now?

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Jul. 16 2009

My column from last week ("Summer Vacation, the Black Bag, and a Mini-Tirade (Or Two)") received more response than any other column in the near-year I've been doing this thing for Seattle Weekly. In my "mini-tirade," I quickly took a swipe at those who make comments on blogs, articles, and fansites without using a real name, therefore sidestepping any real responsibility for their often accusatory and mean-spirited script.

We have reached an age when information and opinions can be shared widely with a simple finger's touch. This is a very cool thing for sure. With these articles, opinions, and fansites online, we are experiencing a sort of letters-to-the-editor-on-steroids phenomenon.

Text-messaging on phones also has taken away some of the personality that an audible voice will parlay. If I have shitty news or am pissed off, I myself will often text instead of call. It is often easier and less confrontational to e-mail or text a tirade, and we can worry about the fallout of said tirade at a later point . . . putting it off. Is this better? No. Is it easier? Well, for the time being, and we ARE becoming a point-and-click, path-of-least-resistance society.

Newspapers have their Op/Ed sections and letters to the editor to provide a community voice in return. With these letters, though, comes the person's first and last name and hometown. If someone writes to a newspaper in response to something they feel strongly enough about, there seems to be pride in owning up to who you are . . . maybe that's old-school, but at least there is discourse with identity.

People say you could track back anyone on the computer if you tried hard enough. The comments section on YouTube videos and columns like this one have at times included nasty and unkind comments with some wacky made-up moniker attached. I would never have the interest to track down someone unless they'd somehow done irreparable damage to someone I love, but that is not what I am talking about. Who really cares to track someone down? What I am talking about is this: What does that say about us as a society when we say something online that we would never even dream of saying face-to-face? I am not sure. I am just asking the question, and from last week's response, so too are many of you.

When I was talking to my wife earlier today about some of this, she said that, especially with celebrities, some people just get fed up with all the nonsense and want to rail back, and the Internet supplies that forum. Fair enough. But doesn't the Internet also provide a forum to identify yourself when railing at a celebrity?like "That's right. I said it. What you gonna do about it?" Hiding behind pseudonyms seems to me like something an 11-year-old would do . . . and that brings up another point.

Back in 2004, when Velvet Revolver put out our first record, a great fansite popped up with our tour dates, recent photos, birthdays, and a fan forum (a place where fans could write in). Back then, I would read everything fans had to say, and certain veins of conversation did turn VERY opinionated, if not downright vitriolic. I would find myself taking some of this stuff to heart, until one day on tour, I met one of these people who often railed in the forum. He was 14 YEARS OLD!!! I realized then and there that KIDS were the ones mostly responsible for the maddening text. I was letting little kids get into my head, and they were just testing their boundaries as many teenagers do. I felt instantly enlightened and foolish, and I no longer read that kind of thing.

P.S., Punk Rock

Also last week, I commented that Green Day had somehow maintained a punk ethic well into their mainstream success. The term "punk rock" indeed means different things to different people, and I was glad to hear some of those differing opinions.

Brad Cox, a recent reader of my column, wrote a profound explanation of what "punk rock" means to him. His band plays metal and hard rock, but he felt that the way they live their lives, write their music, and put themselves out there was indeed punk rock. If you get a chance to scroll back to his comment on last week's column, please do.

Some people really feel a need to explain what punk rock is, and that it is their own private box of specialness that is not to be touched by anyone else. If that is what punk rock is to them, more power to them. But I think it is a much bigger and more powerful paradigm. Johnny Cash is punk rock, and so too in many ways is Katy Perry. Anyone who writes their own music and portrays it the way that they want?damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead?is in my opinion punk rock. That includes Charles Bukowski, Mastodon, and the Dalai Lama.

To conclude: I am punk rock and sign my name to this column week in and week out. If you are just commenting and have a cool and fun viewpoint or addition, sign under any name you like. The rest of you, don't bother.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/07/can_you_hear_me_now_1.php

An article from Duff...

Duff McKagan: Reintroducing You to the Cr?e

Take it from a guy who couldn?t keep up.

By Duff McKagan

Published on July 21, 2009 at 7:42pm

Duff McKagan's column runs every Thursday on Reverb, our music blog.

The year was 1989, and I'd recently bought a small vacation place in Lake Arrowhead, Calif., to get out of Los Angeles in the hope of periodically escaping my bad drink and drug habits. Little did I know that Tommy Lee of M?tley Cr?e also had a place up there. Within two months I was throwing up blood at Tommy's cabin. Nobody, not even me at the time, could "hang" with the dudes in M?tley Cr?e.

I have been asked by the brain trust here at Seattle Weekly to write a piece on M?tley Cr?e, foreshadowing their July 27 Cr?eFest appearance at the White River Amphitheatre. I suppose I am the most qualified, as my band Loaded just spent a month touring Europe with them, and my old band GN'R toured with them back in 1988. I guess I simply know where some of the bodies are buried.

Here are some quick pointers for those of you who want to know more about "the Cr?e" but are perhaps afraid to ask:

1) Nikki Sixx is a genius. This music visionary (who spent some of his growing-up years in Seattle) had the foresight to move to Hollywood in 1979 and start a movement. With a suitcase full of Sweet, Slade, and New York Dolls records, Nikki banded together a group of musicians who eventually released Too Fast For Love in 1982, and modern rock had a new leader. Way back then, Nikki somehow blended the opposing crafts of songwriting and business smarts, and he's been a beacon for the rest of us meathead musicians to follow. He has found ways to reinvent this band time and time again, overcoming a period in the mid-'90s that would have outright killed many other groups (and did!). Cr?eFest (Nikki's invention) has fast replaced Ozzfest as the summer tour for any heavy rock band to play.

2) Mick Mars is a hero. Just watching this guy play guitar makes a healthy person feel ashamed for complaining about anything. Diagnosed at 19 with the progressive disease ankylosing spondylitis, Mick has more recently faced a fused back and a full hip replacement as a result. The pain he must endure can only be imagined; his playing of late is a visual release for any musician with a disability. This last month in Europe, I and the other Loaded guys found Mick to be an almost-undiscovered secret weapon of M?tley Cr?e...as if to say "Where did this guy come from?"

3) M?tley kicked our asses. Back in the halcyon days of GN'R, when everyone thought we were the most badass and hard-drinking/drugging motherfuckers around (and maybe so did we), we quickly found out we were in the minor league compared to where M?tley Cr?e resided. With their code names for different drugs and private jet, our peek into their world?when we opened for them on the "Girls, Girls, Girls" tour?was a peek into an abyss that they'd found a way of skating around the brink of while many others had fallen in. Hey, there is nothing glamorous about drinking and drugging, but I must say these guys at least perfected that dark art for a while there back in the '80s.

4) M?tley are BACK! Witnessing these guys play a healthy handful of shows last month proved they have somehow found a spark that had been missing over the past 15 years: At a gig in Wettingen, Switzerland, on a makeshift stage in front of 3,000 rabid fans, I saw these guys become almost punk-rock in energy and snarl. It's like they've realized their music is no longer in vogue, and it's them against the world again?and no one is going to help them in the fight. If you have yet to see this band live, now may be the best time to see them ever. They are pissed off and seemingly united in a cause again.

Let's face it, M?tley Cr?e are not a band that will challenge you intellectually or wow you with groundbreaking, forward-thinking songwriting. M?tley simply keeps throwing out a great groove and simple-but-skull-crushing chord progressions. Want to be challenged musically? Don't go to Cr?eFest. Want to have fun and forget about your 9-to-5 job and asshole boss? M?tley are the perfect band, and Cr?eFest offers as solid a heavy-metal lineup as you'll be able to find all summer.

Duff McKagan: Alice is Back, and I'm Finally Excited About Rock Again

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Jul. 23 2009 @ 10:21AM

Last fall, I wrote a much-discussed piece about the important role that I believe Alice in Chains played in the history of rock 'n' roll. Their overcoming Layne Staley's tragic death has been something of an underdog story that needs to be applauded for the unimaginable heartbreak they live with and the sheer tenacity they had to put the band back on any stage AT ALL! Last Saturday in Detroit, Alice played their first gig in the campaign that will support the release of their first record this decade--a tour that I think will cement them as the premier rock band on this planet. They will have never before toured a record like they will this time around, because of past drink/drug issues rampant throughout their talented ranks.

When the new record comes out in two months (September 26), it will mark the 17th anniversary of the release of the heralded Dirt, which contains so many of the Alice songs that became the soundtracks to so many of our lives. Dirt should be, in my opinion, the cornerstone of anyone and everyone's rock CD collection. The new record will not take a back seat to Dirt in any way--it is simply right up there with any Alice music ever, and in my humble opinion, they have beat themselves with much of the new stuff. Is this a lofty remark from somebody who just wants to give these guys a "leg up" from the soapbox of his own Seattle Weekly column? My reputation stands on what I say here, and I can't wait for the rest of you to hear what I have already been honored and trusted to hear. Do they know that I am writing this piece? No way in hell...they would wince, of that I am quite sure.

I am excited about rock music these days. After a great Loaded European festival tour last month, where I got to see a ton of live music every single day, I am happy to report that there is a sort of return to quality that I must admit I thought was maybe lost and gone forever. Young bands like Parlor Mob and older stalwarts like Mars Volta, Soundtrack of Our Lives, and Mastodon are out there kicking some asses and grooving their butts off. Sometime in the mid-'90s, it seems, terms like "kicking ass" and "setting a groove" were looked at as old-fashioned and un-hip. Shit, Nine Inch Nails even have a discernible soul factor to them these days...and I like it a LOT.

I am glad that Gibson Les Pauls and vintage Marshall amplification are replacing MIDI and ProTools as the prime tool of the rock trade. Musicianship as a whole took a downward turn as a result of too much reliance on taped onstage instrumentation. Don't get me wrong, bands like Muse and Shiny Toy Guns use tape as a true art form, but only AFTER first making themselves top-shelf players. I remember a musician telling me sometime in 1996 that Kurt Cobain had made it OK for the rest of us not to have to learn our instruments--I guess he assumed Kurt couldn't play? That guy had it so wrong. ALL the guys in Nirvana were such good players that they made it all SEEM so easy.

Now back to Alice in Chains and back to the topic.

Alice in Chains never really got the chance to tour and grow to a point of world domination back in the '90s for the aforementioned reasons. While Metallica and AC/DC are great and legendary, doesn't it seem that maybe the whole genre of rock has grown sort of stagnant? Best Buy and Target can promote and advertise and generally make a great fuss, but all the fluster about the Metallica and AC/DC records last fall kind of fell flat after the first couple of weeks. Both records were real good, but not GREAT as promised. The Alice record has greatness AND these guys are ready and able to tour. It is an exciting time for rock 'n' roll.

Why am I writing this now, a full two months before Black Gives Way to Blue's release? I am given free rein here, and have thus far simply written about things I am passionate about or that tickle my fancy. Last week, I was in Los Angeles and saw Alice play some acoustic songs in front of a small audience, and I realized that these guys have somehow remained intact with their friendships stronger and their music just as relevant and inspiring. When I witness something as cool and solid as what I saw that night, it just seems like the light and goodness of these guys' story should be shared...and that is all.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and thanks for the overwhelming response from last week. I respect what everyone had to say and look forward to more and more in-depth forums in the future.

Duff's Summer Reading: Vol. II

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Jul. 30 2009

I received a comment to last week's article on Alice in Chains that instantly reminded me of part of my somewhat-lost "mission statement" here. The comment was a suggestion from a reader about a new book, The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin. Ah, yes! We are in midsummer--a great time to sit on the back porch and read a good book. I'd like to think that this weekly forum can be used as a meeting place for the intellectual-minded on topical subjects, yes, but also a place where we can all turn each other on to what books we have been reading: suggested high-minded fodder for us who can't find a good book on our own (I definitely fall into that category at times).

Thankfully, I have friends who know that I am an avid reader, and they will sometimes pick up a book for me that they think fits my criteria (nonfiction, mostly). Mike Squires was in Portland last week, and found himself perusing the famous Powell's Books. He happened upon You Can't Win by Jack Black, a very popular book in the 1920s that quickly went through five pressings before inexplicably being forgotten, hence becoming an underground cult read.

You Can't Win was reportedly William S. Burroughs' favorite book and a cornerstone of his writing style; in the new edition that I now own, Burroughs penned the introduction. The book follows Black's rough-and-tumble childhood, which eventually brought him to a life of crime and riding the trains, criss-crossing the turn-of-the-century United States. Black tells an uncompromising tale of his absolute fascination with the life of a "yegg"--basically, a homeless vagrant that chooses a life free of the 9-to-5 job, etc.

This book is really quite fascinating in that Black's voice throughout stays true to the parlance of that time. If any of you have seen an episode of HBO's Deadwood, that will give you a clue to the peculiar Western-style speech of that time. This book is an absolute page-turner, and I highly recommend seeking out a copy of your own. It is one of those that you keep and display on your home bookshelf . . . for sure!

If you lean more toward rock and roll and if you are a Stooges, Iggy Pop, or even David Bowie fan, Open Up and Bleed by Paul Trynka is probably the most complete and well-researched book ever written (and there been a few) on not only the Stooges, but also on how Iggy got the last name "Pop," the downfall and triumphant return of Iggy's career, and lastly the triumphant return a few years back of Ron Asheton and the Stooges. I read this book on tour last month, and it inspired some good rock moments out there in Europe for me.

I just picked up a new book that is perched to be my next read after You Can't Win. Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War is a National Book Award Finalist that examines a little-written-about side of that dreadful period in American history: how we dealt with ALL of the death that was its overwhelming product. To quote Vintage Books' blurb on the back of this book:
"600,000 dead . . . an equivalent proportion in today's population would be 6 million. In This Republic of Suffering, Faust reveals the way that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation, describing how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, Northerners, and Southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality."

I like books on war in general, if only to try to grasp what it must be like to fight, kill, and die in something as fucked up as armed combat. Two of my brothers were in Vietnam, and I asked my mom once back then (I was probably 5) how a war gets started. She said that basically two men couldn't get along and so they had all of their citizens fight out their differences. I have yet to find a better explanation.

Stephen Ambrose has written some fine books on the human condition in war and other stressful situations. Band of Brothers and Citizen Soldier are just two of his that I can highly recommend. Ambrose's book on the Lewis and Clark expedition, Undaunted Courage, tops my all-time favorite nonfiction list in that he so precisely nails down every twist and turn of that journey while also putting the reader inside of the expedition members' heads. For instance, did you know that modern scientists have concluded that Meriwether Lewis suffered bipolar disease, and they think this is what led to his painful suicide when, after not having turned in his unfinished journals after two years, he was finally beckoned by Jefferson to Washington? Fascinating stuff indeed.

Do any of you have book suggestions? Please share if you can.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/07/duffs_summer_reading_vol_ii.php

My iPod: From Prince to Judas Priest

I had the chance to take part in a Camp Freddy gig down in L.A. last weekend at the House of Blues. Camp Freddy is a sort of rock-and-roll collective that gets together once in a while to play some gig or another (from fundraisers to straight-up "money gigs" for something like the X-Games or Nintendo). This time, Camp Freddy featured Steve Jones (Pistols), Justin Hawkins (the Darkness), Ace Fuckin' Frehley, Steve Stevens, and yes, Ozzy Osbourne. The shit was KILLER.

When I got to the soundcheck on Saturday, KISS' "Cold Gin" was being played and Ace was there, larger than life. I knew then and there that I was indeed having a very good day. Good rock 'n' roll from yesteryear seems to hit you in a different place. Good rock has most likely already trod a well-worn groove into my psyche that is now just a comfortable place for a song like "War Pigs" or "God Save the Queen" to revisit. Whatever--it fuckin' feels good and RIGHT. Here is what's on my iPod right now (this is NOT the time for vinyl purists and alternate mp3 players and/or the conversation regarding digital vs. analog. Let us just rock, mofos). Listen to a many of the songs after the jump.

Duff McKagans iPod
The Germs, M.I.A.(the Complete Germs): I like this full collection of the Germs simply because "No God" is included. The Germs' G.I. changed the shape of American punk rock back then, and this collection has stood the test of time for sure.

Loudermilk, Red Record: These guys from the Tri-Cities took the rock world by storm a decade or so ago, and rightly or wrongly were tagged as the fathers of emo. I say who gives a damn what they call it, it's genius! Sometimes brilliance shines too brightly and suddenly disappears. Loudermilk were gone before they had a chance to do much more than the Red Record.

M?torhead, Aces of Spades: Uh-huh.

The Stooges, Raw Power and Funhouse: I am not sure which songs are on which record anymore, and that is probably a function of me being immersed in "shuffle all" for too long now. With the Stooges or ANY Iggy Pop record, it just doesn't matter, though. This is honest, pure, brutal, and sometimes beautiful and artistic rock 'n' roll. All you have to do is CRANK IT!

Judas Priest, British Steel: Yeah? Suck it...

Queens of the Stone Age, Rated R and Songs for the Deaf: Two kick-ass and timeless rock records that can stand up on their own. Queens forged a new groove into the sound of rock and roll, and we must hail the originals (or are Masters of Reality the originals?).

Refused, Shape of Punk to Come: In my opinion, this is the last real punk-rock record, and has the ability to lift one above the woof and splatter of obeying and adhering to the man and his ilk. Hey, if there is a punk-rock record since, please share.

The Saints, Stranded: 1977 garage/punk from Down Under. Without the Saints, the world would definitely have lost much of its color.

ZZ Top, Tres Hombres: I had the best time a couple of years back listening to this record critically as I was trying to learn the art of shuffle-blues on the bass guitar. Last year, Dave Grohl and I were at a ZZ show when suddenly Billy Gibbons invited both of us to guest-guitar on "La Grange" and "Tush." For some reason, Gibbons thought me a lead guitarist and called out for me to "take it" during a solo section. I don't think he will do that again! ZZ Top will be at the White River on the 17th, and they are not to be missed.

Van Halen: The David Lee Roth era: I was in eastern Washington recently for a few days, and just left my "shuffle all" on Van Halen the whole time. There is nothing better than a little "Eruption" or "Jamie's Cryin."

Led Zeppelin: The Complete Led Zeppelin: I own the Zep catalogue on vinyl, cassette, and CD. I bought this complete collection on iTunes when I was away from home and needed something familiar. Led Zeppelin has been that touchstone for me since I was probably 12.

Cheap Trick, At Budokan: The best pop songs ever written after the Beatles, for my money. Oh, wait--what about Badfinger?

Buzzcocks, Singles Going Steady: If you are in your teens or 20s and have yet to listen to the Buzzcocks, do yourself a favor and at least listen to "Orgasm Addict." Whoever does the music for the show Entourage is pretty cool and deserves a shout-out. They used "Why Can't I Touch It" at the end of the show a couple weeks back.

Thin Lizzy, Dedication (the Very Best of Thin Lizzy): On this last tour we did in Europe in June, we had a Thin Lizzy concert DVD on constantly in the back lounge of our bus. It just set a tone.

Richard Hell, "Blank Generation": '70s New Yawk Trash. The good shit.

Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, L.A.M.F.: This first record from JT after the DOLLS showed that he was indeed not a one-trick pony. Try "So Alone" and "Que Sera, Sera," too.

D.O.A., Something Better Change: A comprehensive view of maybe the Northwest's most important band ever. Without D.O.A., there very well may never have been a scene in Seattle at all.

The Dead Boys, Young, Loud, and Snotty: "Down in flames, down in flames"!!!!!!!

Prince, 1999: Get your groove on and rejoice in the musical genius that is Prince.

Cameo, Word Up!: Good-time party jams that have stood the test of a generation or two.

Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street: By the campfire or driving in the car, Exile is the classic Stones record that sort of bridges the gap from the '60s to the '70s.

The Beatles, anything: It almost goes without saying.

Black Flag, My War: The record that epitomizes what Black Flag was all about--a must-have for all rock fans.

All right, then. This is by no means a complete list, and I have purposefully left out an endless list of gems and classics. What do you have? Turn me and the readers on to something that maybe we have yet to hear about, something that is classic and has stood the test of time and studio technology.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/08/my_ipod_from_prince_to_judas_p.php#more

We Are the '90s: My Picks

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Aug. 13 2009

After the overwhelming response to last week's music piece, I thought it would be a good idea to continue. Music of course has so many genres and sub-genres that I could easily keep doing this type of column for the next few years, and we would still only be getting at the tip of the audible iceberg. I thought we could now get into music from the '90s.

So in the summer of '89, I was in Chicago with Slash writing music for the upcoming GN'R record. When I write music, I like to be around other inspirational music that is new and hopefully groundbreaking. Good new music for me opens up avenues of musical thought processes that I may not have been previously exposed to. That summer, we got a cassette of the forthcoming Faith No More record Real Thing, a Masters of Reality demo from George Draculius, and a pre-release cassette of Lenny Kravitz' first record. These were new sounds at that time, and a welcome relief from the crap that was out there and available (wait, what year did Badmotorfinger come out?).

Precursors to what would be thought of as music from the '90s were bubbling up in my view. Soundgarden were playing gigs down in L.A. and had been a relatively active band since '87 or so. I met Trent Reznor backstage at a GN'R gig in '89; he told me of a record he was making, and was really enthusiastic about the direction he had stumbled upon. Raging Slab was moving music forward by perfecting, and at times improving upon, classic '70s two-guitar rock 'n' roll. Mother Love Bone was making their record then, too.

OK, now the table was being set. It was a foregone conclusion that bands like Warrant, Poison, and Brittany Fox had used up and abused their reign of substance-challenged and retarded pop-rock. Nirvana's Nevermind was credited as the record that started what has come to be known as the '90s sound and ethic--rightfully so, in my humble opinion. What bands and albums do you feel personify or qualify as the greatest of that era? Here are just a few of mine:

Nirvana, Nevermind: Borrowing and perfecting all the best from punk-rock bands before them and adding an angled angst and song-craftsmanship of their own, Nirvana simply owned it all, turning on a world full of youth who could relate.

Pearl Jam, Ten: A record that made personal politics and caring for others OK. Pearl Jam somehow fused kick-ass rock with a Seattle-ness and PC ethic.

Alice in Chains, Dirt: Fugetaboutit. Layne = cool. Jerry = genius. Sean = brilliant. Mike = badass. A timeless record.

Nine Inch Nails, Closer: Maybe one of the most musically brilliant records ever made...ever. Trent Reznor melded technology, melody, anger, tenderness, and mystique into a continuous and digestible epic. The guy somehow finds a way to constantly get better and expand his art to this day. Incredible.

Korn, self-titled: The first record by Korn was as groundbreaking as anything since Chuck Berry sang "Maybelline." Jonathan's creepy and quirky voice on top of drop C tuning took dark to a whole new level.

Marilyn Manson, Portrait of an American Family: I first saw these guys open for Danzig in '95 or so. Sure, sure, Alice Cooper did this thing in the late '60s and early '70s, but Manson and his band were straight creepy and hailed from Florida's swamplands, citing mass murderers as their influences. Dark.

Dag, Righteous: Vibe magazine hailed this band as the best R&B band of the decade. No small feat, as Dag were white boys from North Carolina. Check this record out if you get a chance.

Mark Lanegan, all solo work: If you have yet to hear any of Mark's solo records, do yourself the big favor now. The ferocity that is his voice and cracked soul will be sure to mesmerize. Trust me on this one.

Hellacopters, Supershitty to the Max!: Kick-ass dirty rock 'n' roll from Sweden that perhaps saved this brand of music from extinction.

Nashville Pussy, Let Them Eat Pussy: This Kurt Bloch-produced masterpiece shoved a middle finger up the ass of all the then-pretenders. Greasy and bloody and fun for sure.

Faith No More, The Real Thing: Enough said.

Soundgarden, Down on the Upside: This record was the culmination and pinnacle of all the talent that this group of men pushed and pulled out of each other. A band gone too soon, in my opinion. Maybe it was meant to be all along, as they may have hit a wall. We at least want more from them now...as opposed to wanting NO more!

Foo Fighters, any and all! Dave Grohl was finally able to realize his full talents as a songwriter, singer, and guitar player, and the rest of us reaped the benefit of his effort. He makes everything seem so damn simple.

Dr Dre, The Chronic: This groundbreaking record reshaped forever the face and thump of modern hip-hop.

Deftones, Adrenaline: This band has been plagued by a massive copycat syndrome, only because what they invented was so damn innovative and kick-ass.

Refused, The Shape of Punk to Come: This record still is one of the ones played most often before I, or any band I have been in, go onstage. A jaw-dropping collection of angry and varied music from a band who were simply masters of their art.

I have left out many here on purpose. Maybe some of you think my choices are crap. The beauty of music, though, is that we all find inspiration in different presentations and packages. Have fun this week. I've been having fun writing these.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/08/we_are_the_90s_my_picks.php

This Is Punk Rock: From the Ramones to the Stiff Little Fingers

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Wednesday, Aug. 19 2009

OK, in keeping with the theme of music, which we seem to have hit a groove with here in the last few weeks, let's try a genre very near and dear to me at least: PUNK ROCK! My field of expertise in this realm more than likely lies more in what most of you would consider old-school. Well, I was 13 in 1977 and very into new music, and it was a great era to be a teenager.

My experience is of course the only thing I can draw from, and that all our varying experiences are unique unto themselves is one of the amazing things about life. I find that by listening to and reading other people's experiences, I get to steal a little piece of their knowledge. Whether it is literature recommendations, movie tips, places on the earth visited, or music suggestions, I've found that keeping an open ear and mind behooves my life (I used to listen to other people's vice suggestions, but that is a whole other story).

So, back on topic: What is punk rock to you? Is it a musical style only (which is OK)? Is punk an ethic? If you have read some of my previous columns, then you know my thought-scape on punk rock can run to the far reaches of music (i.e., Johnny Cash is punk to me) or how one simply carries themselves (i.e., risk-taking for personal growth or simply being a good parent are both kind of punk-rock to me).

For this piece, however, I will stick strictly to music. Please reply in any way, shape, or form that you like. I can only hope for and look forward to any knowledge that you all would be so gracious to share.

Ramones, Rocket to Russia: I got this record at the ripe age of 13, and so began my journey into what was possible as an actual musician. I learned every song. The Ramones can never, ever be overlooked for their importance in modern rock music.

The Clash, self-titled: This record was at first an exotic and very grown-up listen for me as a young teen. Paul Simonon's bass playing on this record would later inform my choice of that instrument as my main axe when I moved to L.A. a few years later.

D.O.A., Something Better Change: If you grew up in the Northwest in the late '70s or early '80s, D.O.A. were a larger-than-life example of how brilliant a live rock band should be. They were as important as any band in history, as far as I'm concerned.

The Saints, I'm Stranded: I remember staying up late one night in 1978 to watch the British show The Saint on PBS, because there was a rumor that the band the Saints were gonna be on it. Maybe a dumb anecdote, sure, but please do yourself a favor and get this record somehow.

Zeke, Flat Tracker: How can you not be impressed with the hard-rocking sound of Zeke? "Chiva Knievel"? Genius.

The Ruts, "Babylon's Burning": One of the bands that I truly regret never being able to see live.

999, anything: I got to see these guys at the Showbox in 1979 or 1980. A band that may have been widely overlooked, but which may have influenced many in the know.

The Vibrators, Pure Mania: With songs like "Petrol," "You Broke My Heart," and "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah," Pure Mania was a favorite record to put on just before we wrecked a house or played beer curling at a punk-rock house party!!!

Dead Kennedys, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables: The ONLY drag about this record is that "California ?ber Alles" is not on it.

The Adolescents, self-titled: Orange County punk that would soon, along with the Germs and Black Flag, influence hardcore.

The Germs, G.I.: Probably one the most important records ever. Groundbreaking in every way.

Black Flag, My War: "You say that you're my friend but you're one of them . . . THEM!"

The Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks: Duh . . .

Sham 69, The Adventures of the Hersham Boys: I think that was the name of the record, anyway! It doesn't matter, check out the song "Questions and Answers." Really, REALLY great!

Stiff Little Fingers, Inflammable Material: I remember playing this record in my mom's living room and her getting upset. The troubles in Ireland were at a peak in 1979, and we have family over there. Check out the song "Suspect Device." This band didn't just rock, but informed the world of their travesty in a war.

The Stooges: I've written of them time and again. You all know my opinion here!

The Buzzcocks, Singles Going Steady: Oh, fuck yeah! This collection pretty much has it all. Maybe the wisest music money anyone could spend.

Dead Boys, Young, Loud, and Snotty: I think that I spoke of this record a few weeks back. Nevertheless, a must-have for any music collection.

Generation X, self-titled: Billy Idol, of course, got a lot of attention later as a solo artist, but Generation X highlighted to us musicians back then just how fucking good a BAND could be!

Circle Jerks, Group Sex: Great band, great record.

The Refused, Shape of Punk to Come: The title says it all. This record is as important as the Germs' record as far as setting a benchmark for the rest of us to follow.

G.B.H., City Baby's Revenge: I just got back from Vietnam!!!!!!!

Bad Brains, "Pay to Cum": The song that maybe epitomizes epic-ness in ferocity! I saw these guys for the first time back in 1980 opening for the Angelic Upstarts, and they blew my mind (actually, BOTH bands blew my mind).

Minor Threat, any and all: These guys may have started out as the front-runners of DC straight-edge, but soon transcended this pigeonhole with their broad and worldly scope.

All right, you get the gist here. I wouldn't know when or where to stop on this particular topic. There are so damn many great bands and records, and I certainly have only gotten to the tip of this iceberg. Please add what you feel may be important. I am always looking for things that I have either forgotten about or may never have heard about. Have fun!

My Summer Records

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Aug. 27 2009

The Tinted Windows
Duff McKagan's column runs every Thursday on Reverb. Check back on Monday for the first in a new weekly installment from Duff.
As this long, hot summer finally sees its waning days, the thought of good summer records piqued my interest as a topic to discuss this week. A good record can indeed become the soundtrack for any given time of the year, and summer records probably top those lists within lists.

I was given two CDs at the beginning of July that became the driving songs of my countless trips over the Cascades this summer. The first is the Parlor Mobs' self-titled full-length, a kick-ass, old-school rock-and-roll rave-up played by 20-somethings who belie their age with their use of vintage Gibson guitars and old tube amplification. Great songs, great players, and a pretty damn good singer, too!

The second is the self-titled album by the Tinted Windows. It's a really fun pop-rock record full of songs that if they were being made by Cheap Trick, would put the band in arenas again. I guess it's no strange thing, then, that CT's Bun E. Carlos is the drummer here. This odd band lineup seems to have thrown out the idea that you have to be perceived as hip or cool (it includes James Iha on guitar, the singer from Hanson!, and the bass player from Fountains of Wayne). It's the hands-down funnest record I have heard in years.

Here are a few more summer records from my past:

It's Only Rock and Roll, the Rolling Stones: This cassette was the soundtrack to the summer I decided to move from Seattle to Hollywood. It got me through a breakup with a girlfriend, kept me awake on my nonstop drive, and kept me company when I was lonely down there in Hell-A. This cassette and my little ghetto blaster were both stolen from my car a couple of weeks after I moved there. Ah . . . welcome to the jungle? (Sorry about that. I couldn't resist.)

1999, Prince: Ah yes, the summer of '83 is when I finally realized that I was one sexy son of a bitch.

The Joshua Tree, U2: This record was by all means not just the soundtrack for my summer of '87, but got me through all of the craziness that was surrounding my band Guns N' Roses that year. My best friend died that summer, and U2 seemed to somehow speak to me and only me, steeling my sorrow and tempering my sadness. This record still holds an important niche in my heart.

The Real Thing, Faith No More: The summer this record came out, I was sort of stuck in Chicago writing songs for what would become Use Your Illusion I and II. What a groundbreaking record this was at the time . . . fresh and vibrant.

Nevermind, Nirvana: As Nirvana were our (GN'R's) labelmates at Geffen, I was able to get a pre-release cassette copy of this record. I remember driving all around L.A. cranking the fuck out of this record. I wore out my cassette and had to get another one, as I would brag to anyone who would listen that these guys were from my town and that soon the rest of the world would realize that people didn't live in tepees in Seattle!

Damaged, Black Flag: In 1982, Black Flag released this tour de force, and I would spin this record almost nonstop at my house (along with a T Bone Burnett record . . . inexplicably enough, these two records really complemented each other!).

Young, Loud, and Snotty, the Dead Boys: This must have been the summer of '79, when my young ears were just coming of age to the trashier sounds of punk rock and roll (as opposed to the English stuff--the Clash, Damned, Vibrators, 999, Undertones, XTC, Jam, Pistols, etc.). This record was the first in a long line of great records that just left me wanting to break stuff!

Look Homeward Angel, Aerosmith: I found this bootleg record at a record store on the Ave. sometime in the summer of '77. The hands-down best REAL bootleg that I have ever owned. I think I still have it somewhere.

Rated R, Queens of the Stone Age: With a song titled "Feelgood Hit of the Summer," how could this album NOT be on my list? No, really--this record, to me, bridged a gap that had been missing in rock sometime earlier this decade.

Live at Budokan, Cheap Trick: Duh!

Killing Joke, self-titled: A sinister and mesmerizing study in just how good a band can be. A summer record? Yes, indeed. I think it was '82? Or was it '81?

Mother Love Bone, self-titled: This bittersweet record got me through some tough times when I myself was at the wrong and losing end of too many vices to name here in this piece alone. A beautiful record for anyone's summer in any year.

The Love Below, OutKast: I played bass along with this record every night before we played on VR's first full summer tour ('04). What an amazing journey this whole record takes the listener on. Here is to more of that from Andre 3000!

My Records of the 1970s

By Duff McKagan

Thursday, Sep. 3 2009

Being the youngest of eight kids exposed me to a LOT of music that my older brothers and sisters were listening to at any given point during my youth. Some of my earliest memories are of leafing through album covers like the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Jimi Hendrix's Axis: Bold as Love, or the day-glo orange Don and the Goodtimes record.

It was in the '70s, however, when I first started to have my own musical awareness--a sense of identifying my "self" inside the songs of a particular band. The '70s bore witness to a mighty sea change in musical tastes. From the epicness of Led Zeppelin and the dirtiness of Aerosmith sprang the coming of the Ramones and punk rock. The '70s seemed also to bring an antagonistic dividing line between urban and suburban--disco and rock--that seemingly only the mighty Prince was finally able to erase.

All I knew, however, was that there was music I loved, some I didn't, and some I outright despised. (No need to bring up what my teenage dislikes were. I was a kid, and I truly felt like my opinion was the last word in cool back then!)

For me, the '70s was when I saw my first rock concerts and first all-ages punk shows. I saw Aerosmith tour their album Rocks at the Kingdome, as well as Zeppelin's last Seattle show at the same venue. I saw Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent, KISS, and countless others at the now defunct Coliseum (now KeyArena). When punk rock hit Seattle, I started my indoctrination in what good local music was all about, as well as hearing touring national and international bands. From the Cheaters and Telepaths to the Avengers, Black Flag, DOA, and X, the '70s seemed to have it all. Will we ever see another decade quite like the '70s? It's hard to say, but one thing is for sure . . . I am going to continue our discussions from the last few weeks and put up another of my lists. This time, however, it will be centered around the great decade of the '70s.

As I have stated prior to previous lists: This is by no means my be-all, end-all list--just a conversation starter.

ABBA, ABBA (Greatest Hits): Anyone who is or has been a songwriter will surely testify to the song-craftsmanship that makes up the basis of ABBA. Golden and blissful sounds of the '70s.

Mot?rhead, Ace of Spades: When these guys first hit the scene late in the decade, hardcore rock fans finally found a safe place that would shepherd them through the confusion found a few years later in the rock '80s (except for GN'R . . . of course!).

ZZ Top, Tres Hombres: Kick-ass American blues from down Texas way. Yeah, I know that I've pimped these guys a lot lately . . . but I really can't say enough about just how great they were and are.

Led Zeppelin, anything: These guys put a soundtrack to my life not only in the '70s, but also now and again to my life now. Seeing these guys at the Kingdome was definitely one of the true rock moments that I have drawn upon in my professional life. I couldn't possibly say enough about the rhythm section of John Paul Jones and John Bonham. Shit, man, when Bonham's drum solo started, I smoked a joint, went to the hot dog line, waited in the line, got my hot dog, came back to my seat, and ATE my hot dog, and Bonham was STILL doing his drum solo! Perhaps not as eloquent as a picture as I was trying to portray here, but funny nonetheless!

Aerosmith, Rocks, Draw the Line, Toys in the Attic, et al.: I remember looking through an Encyclopedia Britannica back in '73 or so, and seeing that Aerosmith was America's answer to the Rolling Stones. Maybe this was an over-simplistic explanation of who they were at the time, but it certainly got me into what was to become a fascination with early Aerosmith.

Thin Lizzy, Dedication (The Very Best of Thin Lizzy): Oh, Rosalie! I really, really love this band. A couple of years ago when I was in Dublin on tour with VR, I stumbled out of my hotel one morning in search of some coffee. As I took a sleepy turn to my left, I ran smack into a life-size bronze statue of singer Phil Lynott. When I got back to the hotel lobby, the desk manager asked me if I saw the statue of "de goy prom Tin Lizzy?" Indeed I had.

Bad Company/Free, anything: Paul Rodgers sang his first Free song at the age of 16, I just found out the other day. 16! Both these bands should be a staple in anyone's CD collection.

Badfinger, anything: A magical band with a tragic ending. Some say that Badfinger was cursed, others say the Beatles wrote their songs for them. Whatever . . . they were really great.

The Sweet, anything: "Desolation Boulevard" and "Action" are the blueprint of rock fantasy.

Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks: A record that changed the way we all thought about rock music.

The Clash, The Clash: A band for the people, by the people. This band took the mystery and untouchable-ness out of the equation for fans like me.

The Ramones, anything: Do I really have to say anything at all?

Prince, : The end of the '70s gave reign to a new king, and his name was Prince Rogers Nelson. Once in a while, a true musical visionary is born.

AC/DC, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap: Along with the Saints and Radio Birdman, AC/DC kicked our asses from all the way Down Under!
The Germs, (GI): After the Pistols, the Germs took punk music to another level and hardcore was born.

Earth, Wind and Fire, anything: Another band that really gave the '70s a soundtrack.

KISS, Alive!: She's a Capricorn and I'm a Cancer!

Cheap Trick, Cheap Trick at Budokan: Maybe the best live record ever.

Ted Nugent, Ted Nugent: Actually the ONLY Terrible Ted record I own, and it's a classic, if you ask me.

OK, so these are just a few of my favorites. As we've done in the past few weeks, please write in with comments or additions.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/09/my_records_of_the_1970s.php

My City, My Sports

By Duff McKagan Thursday, Sep. 10 2009 @ 3:08PM

I may be narrowing my audience this week by stating that this time of year is my absolute favorite in the world of sports. My world is admittedly provincial, and that is OK. I am from Seattle, and at no time in all my moving around have I ever pulled for a team outside this area. I'm a "homer," as we are called in the U.S. I could open up a whole new area for you U.K. readers by stating that I pull for Arsenal when I am over there and the mood hits. Why Arsenal? Kick-ass name, is all.

For the past five or six weeks, I have made music lists, and I could sense that this angle was becoming a bit stale and used up--for you the reader, and also for me. I will bring those lists in again from time to time, but for now, let's get into some sports!

Before I begin in earnest, I have to come clean on something I said last year--I stated that I thought Fantasy Football was geeky and served no purpose. Don't get me wrong, my feelings toward FF are the same, but I am now in a league this year. Jerry Cantrell would not take no for an answer, and I now have a team on this year's Alice in Chains/ESPN Charities League. You can log on and root for my team . . . or Zakk Wylde's . . . or Vinny Paul's . . . or Mike Inez's . . . or Kenny Wayne Shepherd's, or whoever else's. Just know that my 13-year-old nephew picked my team, and he is more plugged in to FF than ANY of these hairy rockers! Hey, it IS for a good cause!

This time of year has a bit of everything. College football is just getting started, and the USC/Ohio State game is already upon us. Major League Baseball is nearing the end of the season, and all the divisional races are heating up. The NFL season is finally upon us. Since I was about 6 years old, this week of the year has had an almost Christmas-like feel. So how do our local teams look?

Mariners: We are finally a team who can beat any other on any given night. I really like some of our mid-to-late season pick-ups. We finally got a real utility player in Bill Hall, who could drive in a lot of runs for us next year. Anaheim doesn't look to be going anywhere soon, but if we can get the Rangers out of the way next season, we have a REAL chance at a wild-card berth. Let's hope we can keep Felix and add some pitching. Lopez, Ichiro, Branyan, Gutierrez, and Langerhans are great in our everyday lineup. Oh, yeah . . . and Wilson! Aardsma is a great closer! To next year's M's!!!

Sonics: Oh, yeah . . . fuck you, Clay Bennett and Commissioner Stern!

Huskies Football: Last week's 31-23 loss to LSU showed me a few things. The Huskies are again believing in a head coach and his system. It has been too long. I was fired up to see our guys hitting, and hitting HARD. Sarkisian and his staff have brought hope to Seattle and hope to this failing Huskies program. I grew up in the Don James era. Anything close to that would be an amazing thing in these parts. I got a lot of "The Huskies are BACK" e-mails and texts after last Saturday's game. I guess we fans are buying into Sarkisian's system too.

Seahawks: It's hard to say what kind of team we have. I'm not one to get too excited about pre-season football, hence an undefeated exhibition season means practically nothing (admittedly, it is better than a WINLESS pre-season record, right?). Our D-line looks real good, but our D-backs scare me. Our offensive line has improved, but that is not saying a whole lot. Matt Hasselback has a plethora of receivers this year, and the addition of "Hoosh" may prove to pay lots of dividends. It seems as if this team has made a seamless transition into buying into new coach Jim Mora's program. The Hawks are my team, and I will be living and breathing every play again this year. Some have picked us to win our division, but after that? What do you guys think?

Sounders F.C.: All right, I am sorry to say that I am just not there yet. I played two years of soccer back in the '70s because I had a good friend who wanted me to play on his team. I was more the football/basketball/baseball guy. Because I played soccer in the '70s, I was aware that Seattle had just got a major-league team, and that Pel? was coming to town with his New York Cosmos (Pel? had passed his prime in places where his skill mattered, but we in America were absolutely thrilled by this phenom). The Sounders were always that other team that employed college players and others. Now it's suddenly Sounders F.C. everywhere you look. Games are selling out at Qwest, and people are talking about the club and its fans all over this country. When I travel, inevitably someone will come up to me and say, "Oh, you are from Seattle. How 'bout those Sounders!?" I mumble something about missing the boat, etc . . .

So that's it. It's that time of year when a lot of sports stuff is happening all at once. My girls will try to change the channel on me this weekend. But I am bigger than them, and have a multitude of tactics to sway them to another activity. Maybe I will tie my credit card to the end of a kite and float it out in the backyard for the weekend. They will get their exercise AND think there is a chance of going to the mall. Or I'll simply tell them that some 11- and 12-year-old boys are coming over to watch. That'll send them to their rooms in a hurry.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/09/my_city_my_sports.php

Racism: It's Not Just Online Anymore

By Duff McKagan

Thursday, Sep. 24 2009

As you might imagine, after writing for Seattle Weekly as long as I have, there are going to be comments that go against me or my topic. No problem. I am a big boy and have learned to deal with criticism, from my early days of playing punk rock when it wasn't so popular to being in a huge band starting in my early 20s. Writers, jocks, and certain fans have been criticizing me or my bands for the past 30 years! That is simply part of the deal. Ask Krist Novoselic about this sometime, and I am sure he would concur. Our careers have oddly mirrored one another, now being colleagues as writers and all. Damn, I am a parent and get criticized daily by my almost-teenage daughters. That is part of life.

I have always had a sort of unspoken motto and daily regimen. I try to clear my thoughts upon waking in the morning, to approach each day without the baggage of the day before. Life is just too short to act on day-old baggage. So here I am, a guy who from the outside may appear always to be looking on the bright side or some such thing. It's just that I try to get it right TODAY and not sweat what happened yesterday. Enough about me.

I have written about some of the darker comments I have received during my tenure here at the Weekly. I have commented on how people nowadays can get pretty damn brazen whilst hidden behind their computer. It is our new paradigm and dilemma. This last week, however, I have made comments back to a couple of people, either because I thought they were too insulting to the people who read and comment on my column, or because they were being racist and ignorant.

On Mondays, the Weekly releases an "I've Been Listening To . . ." feature that I do in which I talk about what's playing on my iPod. It is really just a forum for people to write in about music, with me simply starting the conversation. Music is something I like to write about because there is no downside. Art has no definition. I write on stuff that I like, and I like a TON of different stuff. If there is something I don't like, I don't write about it (see paragraph 2 above). I recently received a comment that was so racist and bigoted that it left me feeling bummed out and a bit mortified. I won't repeat it here, and it's since been deleted from my column.

In this day and age, with our youth having access to technology and information right at their collective fingertips, you would think that a broader diversity would hasten forward along with it. But there are always going to be creeps, I guess . . .

Before I get too off-topic here, I want to ask some of you what you think about diversity awareness. We here in America, at this point in our history, should have about one of everything (ethnicity, religion, bi/straight/homo, punk, hip-hop, right-wing, left-wing, etc) in your family-chain somewhere, right?

Racism and bigotry are by no means exhibited only on the Internet. Calls of right-wing racism are being heard daily now against factions of the Republican Party. I don't know about this, because I don't trust ANY partisan rhetoric these days. As for the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world calling Obama a racist, the one thing I can say is that Mr. Limbaugh is a wack-job who knows how to keep his frightened listeners dialed in to his show.

We all inhaled in dumbfounded astonishment a couple of years back when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaimed that there was no such "problem" as homosexuality in his country. Last Friday, he made his yearly statement that there was no such thing as the Holocaust. It simply didn't happen, according to him. It is a Jewish lie . . .

After the terror attacks of 9/11, many of us in America and Europe were so frightened and afraid that a widespread bigotry against ALL Muslims saw a sharp rise. Many of us were simply uneducated. Our worldview can at times be extremely skewed to the West. Education is key here, don't you think?

When President Bush and his advisers decided that it was a good idea to invade Iraq, I sure wish that someone in his cabinet would have read one of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's books on Middle Eastern conflict and tribal warfare, which has gone back to antiquity (From Beirut to Jerusalem or Longitudes and Attitudes). I think our soldiers deserve to be as well-prepared as possible. Education about the region they were about to invade should have been a larger part of their training. (As an aside, another great author on this subject is Dexter Filkins. I am reading The Forever War right now. It's fascinating and really eye-opening).

Oddly enough for me, at a back-to-school parent/teacher night I attended last Monday, I was delighted to listen to a talk given by the woman who leads the diversity program at the school. What I came away with was that my kids are getting the information they need that will keep them from being racially ignorant or ignorant of world religions. In my older child's middle school, they are covering the Middle East, apartheid, terrorism, and the Cold War and how it affected the Soviet people at the time. Heady stuff, yes, but I am pleased as can be that my child is getting a worldview at her young age.

Another teacher at the school highlighted that the kids will be covering Internet predators and the "cyber-bully" syndrome this year. Guest speakers will be coming in throughout the year. This is what our children have to deal with these days.

Anyhow, I am not quite sure if I have a clear and defining point this week--rather I am just sort of checking in and getting some things off my chest. If nothing else, I hope that some discourse will happen because of this week's subject matter. Thanks for reading . . .

-- Duff

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/09/racism_its_not_just_online_any.php

On the Road. Again...

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Oct. 1 2009

Here we go again. For those of you who are uninitiated with the trials and tribulations of my band Loaded, well, then, welcome to a new (to you at least) phase of my writing: the Tour Journal. For those of you who have been here before . . . well, you probably have already stopped reading. You see, things get pretty damn silly around this band when we go on tour.

Here's the deal:

1. I have been touring from my punk-rock halcyon days in the early '80s, when it was all so innocent, to the present. This is how fortune saw best for me to earn my way financially.
2. As we all know, work can suck sometimes.
3. As of late, I have tried to surround myself with musicians that make work less sucky while trying to push the envelope artistically.
4. My passion is and will always be music.
5. Passionate music doesn't always fill the coffers to the level you may like.
6. Life is short.
7. Loaded has a blast.
8. Loaded tours like I used to tour in my "punk-rock halcyon days":
a) few showers.
b) little sleep.
c) play every night.
d) eat like crap.
e) close proximity to other stinking men who reek of non-human smells.
f) full-on glamour.

We leave for the UK and Ireland on Monday for 20 days, and will be bringing new drummer Isaac Carpenter. You may know Isaac as that monstrous drummer from Loudermilk a few years ago, but I know him as a real nice dude with a wicked sense of humor. I hope he maintains that humor once we get a few days into touring and those aforementioned smells arise. I will be giving a weekly update on how it is going out there.

What is even more entertaining is that our guitarist, Mike Squires, will be tour-managing us AND editing our award-winning Loaded Webisodes on this trip. I have no doubt there will be a tipping point on this tour with Mike. He is an odd mixture of crazy artist, mad scientist, and wound-tight guy. I hope to exploit the wound-tight guy as much as possible and get a lot of this on video. It always makes for good TV. Check out our Webisodes at http://youtube.com/loadedlamf . Our newest edition, "Summer Tour," features Mike's new hit song, "Suck It."

For this week, as all of us live in different places, we are at our undisclosed rehearsal place somewhere on the Columbia River. This is a place we can come before a tour and really just sequester ourselves and do nothing but music. There is no TV or Internet, providing a much-needed break from the constant news cycle we humans are barraged by. We are going to play a show this Saturday at Chop Suey to put Isaac to the live test before we go. Come on down . . . I may have some new jokes.

Give a Little . . .

Last Saturday night in Los Angeles, I was honored to take part in a benefit concert for Gutter Twins bassist Scott Ford at the Roxy Theater. He, like many of my musical brethren, goes through life without basic health insurance. Along with the other necessities like rent, food, and schooling for his child, the weight of his financial burden has caused some wobbling in a few places. Scott got very sick this year, and was forced to take out a loan to pay for the first in a long series of surgeries that will hopefully get him better. Like me, Scott has a 12-year-old daughter, and has a lot to live for. He is one of the good guys.

The show featured a wide range of ?ber-talented musicians, and was a blast to be a part of. Among the highlights was watching Greg Dulli and Wayne Kramer do the Stooges' "Down on the Street" and AC/DC's "Hell's Bells," and Deep Purple alum Glenn Hughes doing "All Right Now" by Free. Fans and friends filled the venue that night, and I am continuously delighted by how generous people can be when they see that someone needs help. Rock fans are the most generous I have ever seen. But we have only scratched the surface as far as what Scott needs for further lifesaving medical needs. If you can help, please go to HYPERLINK "http://fordradio.blogspot.com/"http://fordradio.blogspot.com, where there is a PayPal account set up. Thank you!

Ahmadinejad

Wow. I'm not sure any of you caught the CNN/ Larry King interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but it was very interesting to me with respect to how smart and prepared the Iranian President is. Now we all know that many or all of Larry's questions must first be approved by high-ranking political figures such as Ahmadinejad, but man . . . the dude knows how to answer a question with another question like nobody's business! It got very scary for me when the interview headed toward the Israeli/Iran nuclear arena. It seems that this conflict is indeed heating up, and I sure hope cooler and smarter minds somewhere are thinking of proposed resolutions. Scary stuff, indeed. May I suggest that we all read Kris and Brad Cox's comments on this very subject in this very column. The world NEEDS intelligent and enlightened people like these two. Stay tuned for that . . .

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/10/on_the_road_again.php

Saying Goodbye, Pete Doherty (Naked), and a Good Book or Two

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Oct. 8 2009

As I stated last week, my band Loaded is back on tour and back in the UK, where we have been reasonably well received this year. We have a new drummer, Isaac Carpenter, who has never been to Europe or the UK...cool.

I knew there was something I liked about Isaac other than his incredible musicianship. I flew here from L.A. while the rest of the band flew in from Seattle. (I arrived hours after them.) I asked Isaac how his first transatlantic flight was, and he replied that he was teary the whole flight because he watched It's a Wonderful Life and Good Will Hunting on the trip. It's a Wonderful Life is my all-time favorite movie, which in itself probably speaks volumes about my imagined romantic ideals. We are on a ferry now from Scotland to Northern Ireland, and Isaac and I are unashamedly discussing the pros of The Notebook.

On Isaac's first morning in London, he noticed a naked and blanketed drunk man falling off a tour bus down near where our gear was to be picked up (a semi-famous rehearsal and storage facility named John Henry's). The naked man then got into a cab with two ladies. Isaac realized it was none other than Pete Doherty. A good first day in England, I would say. Definitely something to write home about.

Because I am such a romantic, it makes it that much harder, I suppose, for me to be away from my family. My daughters understand and are used to it, and also know how hard it is for me. The day before I left, they were extra-clingy to me because they know that my heart aches. Our dog, Buckley, always tries to sneak into my bag.

I left notes this time for my girls. In these notes are a series of geographical questions that they must answer back to me via e-mail. These questions will, I hope, give them a sense of where on this planet I am, and therefore help quell the mystery of where I am calling from at odd hours. The extra bonus on these questions is that they will receive hidden presents that are stashed around the house. They are super-excited, and my wife says it's a BIG hit. I slept better last night knowing that they are thinking about where I am.

I always have a book with me, and I just started Jon Krakauer's new book, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. Krakauer has thankfully filled the shoes of the late and amazing fiction writer Stephen Ambrose, at least in my humble opinion. I just love how this guy writes and the depth to which he probes his subject matter.

Last week, I finished Dexter Filkins' The Forever War, an amazing and dismal look at the problems that are now facing the people of Iraq and our U.S. forces there. It's a perfect companion book to Thomas Friedman's Longitudes and Attitudes.

Well, we just finished our first show of the trip here in Belfast, Ireland (or United Kingdom, which is officially what it is called). This town holds a special place in Loaded's heart, as this town has seemed to really hoist our band upon their collective shoulders over the past year. I marvel at the history of the troubles that went on here until just a few years ago. Some of the neighborhoods' curbs are still painted either blue or red to signify the religious dividing line that until recently cast a deadly pall over this area. A bit like Iraq right now, as a matter of fact. Isn't it funny how our leaders fail so miserably to learn from so recent a history lesson?

A strange new attitude has seemed to arise since I was here last year. At our meet-and-greet after our show last night, I got into a conversation with some people that turned somewhat sociopolitical. Compared to the worldwide euphoria of last year's hopes about where the U.S. was heading with President Obama at the helm, there is now a palpable sneer, at least with the people I spoke to here in Belfast. Interesting.

My daughters called me tonight, and are getting mani/pedis with their mom. It feels real nice to be needed by my three women. My dog, Buckley, had a play date with two other dogs today. I played a gig and slept in the bus bunk. 19 days 'til home. 19 days of pure rock and humor with the fellas. Life is definitely an adventure.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/10/saying_goodbye_pete_doherty_na.php

Touring Around the UK Without My Vision Again

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Oct. 15 2009

A couple of weeks back I finally got Lasik surgery for my eyes, and it was like magic. Where before I could not see up close or far away without glasses, after the surgery I could suddenly see all without the assistance of eyeglasses. Cool! However, in these first few weeks, I was forewarned that from day to day, my vision may get blurry and/or sharpen up. Today it is completely blurry.

This week, I feel as if I have nothing really to write about, so I will just sort of let the words flow and see what happens. It's not as if I haven't been doing anything, though. I am on a rock tour through the UK, and therefore have been in a different city every day. As I write from the top lounge of our tour bus this morning, I am looking out over the English Channel from Portsmouth. Portsmouth is where the D-Day attack was launched on June 6, 1944. I am a WWII fanatic, so this is pretty cool. Later today, after my two hours of phone interviews to Brazil, I will try and visit the war museum here before soundcheck.

The gigs over here have been great for us. Our fan base over here is pretty hardcore, and they seem to understand our wry and brash sense of humor. There was even a gathering of our UK fans in a town called Leamington Spa a couple of hours north of London. It's really pretty cool to play some of these smaller towns and villages when we come over here, as you never know what you will chance upon. For instance, at the gig in Leamington Spa, our backstage room was Tammy Wynette's trailer from the 1950s! How it got over here is anyone's guess, but it was in pristine condition, all pink and chrome and glass. The village of Leamington Spa is rather upscale, extremely quaint, and is, I understand, a destination resort town with a couple of colleges. VERY English in a textbook sort of way.

I wandered into a record store in Nottingham yesterday, where I found Jeff Beck's Truth and The Band's self-titled CD for just three pounds each brand-new . . . such a deal for these benchmark pieces of work. I also got "Now This Is What I Call Music Volume 73" for 15 pounds. I WILL pay top dollar for the cheese. I absolutely LOVE cheeky British pop music. Some of it is so bad that it is genius. On a ferry ride from Ireland the other day, I got Kylie Minogue's Greatest Hits. I can't wait to listen to it, if only to bother our guitarist Mike Squires with it. He HATES cheeky pop, and it has become a little game of cat-and-mouse that we play in the bus or backstage. I will put something on, and he will instantly get up and move. I then follow him around and innocently put the CD on again wherever he has settled. It's fun for me, but I sense not so fun for poor Mike.

The questions game I devised for my daughters back home has really been a home run! They excitedly e-mail with their answers as to where I am at, and they have been receiving their hidden presents. It makes me feel really good that they know where on this planet I am. My dog Buckley gets real excited too, they tell me. He will look at the globe with them and jump up and down . . . or maybe he jumps up and down because he knows it's dinner time. Whatever. I believe what I believe and that is MY reality: that even my dog misses me and wants to know where I am. He always gets in my bag as I am packing it before I leave. It breaks my heart. I think it breaks his, too.

I broke my front tooth on the microphone the other night at a show--the same tooth I broke in the second grade when I fell off a chair. My hair is the same length and color as it was when I was 7, and somehow I suddenly look like a kid. Broken tooth and all. I miss my family.

Tonight I will be going to London, where things will become fancy. I will stay at a hotel on Park Lane and see my wife. Fancy! We will go to Vivienne Westwood on Bond Street to look at fancy clothes, and I will do a TV appearance on Channel 4 over here. Fancy. Loaded will play the Hammersmith tomorrow night. FUCKING ULTRA FANCY. I played this venue with GN'R in '87 and five more times with Velvet Revolver The Hammersmith is where David Bowie retired Diamond Dogs.

Well, there it is, a stream-of-conscience column written without the luxury of sight! I hope you enjoy. If you are about to come to one of our shows over here, and I don't recognize you . . . you now know why!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/10/touring_around_the_uk_without.php

Chloe and Me...and Buckley, Too

By Duff McKagan

Thursday, Oct. 22 2009

At this moment I am sitting on a train awaiting departure from Glasgow, Scotland, south to Newcastle. My wife just left this morning, heading back home. The rest of the band is already in Newcastle, as they chose to have their day off down there while I stayed up here. Yes, yesterday was a much-coveted rest day, a day to let the bruises heal and the various joint-swellings recess a bit.

Yesterday, I finally watched Marley and Me. I had read the book when it came out, but had resisted actually seeing the movie as the subject matter hits a little too close to home for me. You see, I had a yellow lab in my adult years who was a LOT like Marley except that she was a girl named Chloe.

To me, the parallels of the Marley story to my life are almost uncanny. I write a column, as does John Grogan, the author of Marley and Me. Chloe was a naughty and mischievous girl in her youth, as was Marley. Chloe chewed up anything and everything . . . so did Marley. Chloe helped us raise our daughters, and would know beforehand when one of them was going to be sick or otherwise out of tilt. Chloe would help nurse us back to health without expectation of reward. Chloe loved us without condition, and she in return became the love of our lives. When she got sick with liver cancer at the age of 13, we nursed her back and did anything and everything to ease her pain. When the stairs at our house became too much of a hurdle for my girl, I would carry her up so that she could sleep with us, her family.

When it came time to put Chloe down, my wife and I bawled as we loaded her into the back of my Ford Bronco. I called my English professor at Seattle University to tell him that I would not be able to make class that day, and he heard the pain in my voice. Professor Sam Greene was a visiting poet, and I was fortunate enough to get into his class. As I told him the reason for my absence, he began to cry right along with me over the phone. I will never forget that. Just before the vet put the catheter into Chloe's vein, she gave me an un-rushed private moment with my girl. I told her how much I loved her and thanked her for helping me grow into a man. I thanked her for the well-being of my daughters and for all the service she selflessly gave. She told me with her eyes that she understood and that she was ready and that she was tired from fighting. She was ready to rest. As the life left her body, I cried harder that I ever had before or since. I loved my girl Chloe.

When we brought our first baby home from the hospital, we had no idea what to expect from Chloe. Until then, she had sort of ruled the roost, as it were, as our only child. Chloe had previous experience in motherhood. As a 1-year-old pre-spayed young lass, she snuck out of the house and got knocked up. A few months later, she had a record 14 PUPPIES!!! It was one of the happiest times in my life having all of those little guys in my house, and Chloe tirelessly handled her motherly duties like a pro. A few years later, as we brought our new infant home, Chloe instantly knew that her role in the family had changed. She slept underneath Grace's crib every night and gently played ball with her as she grew.

When we had our second daughter, Chloe accepted her duties without question or forlon, but she did start to tire more easily. In return, my girls let her rest when she needed it, and the girls got an early sense of responsibility as they seemed to sense that Chloe now needed THEM too.

Chloe was quite a swimmer, and was delighted when we moved to our house on Lake Washington. For years, a beaver lived under our dock who played a daily and spirited game of cat-and-mouse with poor Chloe. Chloe never caught that beaver. When Chloe started to slow down and could only sit on the step that led to the water, the beaver would come in close and sort of visit Chloe. After Chloe died, that poor beaver would search for Chloe every day, but finally gave up after a few weeks--missing her friend, I am quite sure.

When my girls got a bit older, they started to pine for a new dog. My traveling schedule dictated that we would need to get a dog that could travel with us. I had never had a small dog, and never really even been around them. Yappy little dogs are not my style. We found our new little buddy--a King Charles Cavalier spaniel--after scouring dog breeds for months. What he lacks in smarts, he makes up for with love. Our little boy Buckley asks for no more than some food and to be with us. He travels pretty much everywhere we go, and if I must travel away on my own, he tries to sneak into my bag before I zip it up. He is always trying to go on man trips with me. I love you too, buddy.

Watching Marley and Me made me realize somehow that I have a full and rich life, that everyone has problems and fights and issues. But a strong family and an unruly dog are privileges and not nuisances. Sure, I see myself as a sort of wandering bandolero at times, and I am allowed that in my family. They let me be who I am and I give back EVERYTHING I have in return. I may mumble and grumble about living in a houseful of women at times, but really I don't know what I would do without them. I get to go out and rock like a badass (in my own mind, anyway) and ride my motorcycles like a hardass (again, that is how I view myself). Actually, I think I AM all of those things AND a damn good father and husband. Maybe lacking in romance at times, and lacking in a general understanding of what little girls are all about. I am, however, the protector . . . and I know I have learned a lot of this from my life with dogs.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/10/chloe_and_meand_buckley_too.php

Duff McKagan: Surely There Is a Better Way in the Middle East. Even a Rocker Like Me Knows That

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Oct. 29 2009

Many may scoff when they see I am writing a pseudo-political piece. Many, too, will likely proclaim that I have no right to take up a pen on a topic as lofty and complex as Afghanistan and Iraq. But I am a proud citizen of the United States and a member of a family that has sent seven of its members into war in just two generations. I am a student in this life, ever learning and interested in the things that happen now and have happened in the past. Here now are a few of my quick conclusions:

When I read that former Marine Captain Matthew Hoh had resigned his post in protest as a U.S. Foreign Service member in Afghanistan, I decided to finally write my direct opinion as to what and why we are over there.

Hoh claims that while "there are some (al-Qaeda) dudes that need to be killed over there," the U.S. plans and strategy in Afghanistan are ill-planned. He claims that our troop presence in Afghanistan is actually creating more militants, as we are looked at as an evil occupier as opposed to a righteous aid in nation-building. Hoh claims that the opposition there has gone from Taliban-only to a more widespread group that only sees U.S. soldiers occupying their until-now peaceful villages and valleys. President Obama is mulling sending an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, as Gen. McCrystal has asked. I don't get it.

Has anyone seen Charlie Wilson's War or read the book? The fighters that the U.S. covertly funded and supplied with BILLIONS of dollars of taxpayer money to fend off the Soviets in the '80s are the same fighters we are spending BILLIONS of dollars and U.S. soldiers' lives to fight. In just 30 years, we have gone from one side to the other. By the way, the Soviets got their asses kicked while trying to occupy this region, and so did Genghis Khan. They call Afghanistan "the Empire Killer" simply because it drains previously well-supplied armies of their material and will to fight.

The people there are used to civil war and hard living; strife is a comfort zone that goes back hundreds if not thousands of years in this region. It is a tribal-warfare region, tribes basically fighting over the same water, well, or irrigable piece of sand. What the hell are we doing in a place like this? I've heard the argument that we're in there to ensure that it doesn't become a breeding ground for terrorist groups again. But our going in there creates more fuel against America, as it did for the Soviets. From before we were born until after we are dead, there will be breeding grounds for terrorists.

The Middle East and Afghanistan are none of our business. This war is not winnable, in my opinion. In the past I have touted books like The Forever War, Longitudes and Attitudes, and The Pat Tillman Story in this column. If anyone wants to learn more about this region, please read these books or otherwise educate yourself on the history and conflict that has been in this region well before we were even a country.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has been called their "Vietnam." Haven't we already had our Vietnam? How is it that our government so quickly forgets a war that so split our country and killed so many soldiers and displaced so many innocent villagers? That war was meant to quell Communism, this one is meant to stop terrorism. I must be missing something here. Did the Vietnam War do anything to stop Communism in that region? I would argue that it only strengthened it. And something else about Vietnam sounds familiar when you compare it to Afghanistan: The U.S. propped up Ho Chi Minh's cause in their fight for independence in the 1940's, only to fight and lose against his armies 20 years later.

People like Osama bin Laden need to be stopped for sure, but is a conventional war the answer? I don't see how sending more armed troops to that region will create less hatred. The kids that the Taliban are sending into battle from their religious fundamentalist camps and schools only seek to gain glory as their fathers did against the Soviets. They are trained from an early age to hate Americans. Will sending more soldiers over there do anything to stop this hatred? Peace Corps, anyone?

T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) was a student first, a soldier second. During WWI, he was sent to what is now Saudi Arabia to help protect the English interest in the Suez Canal and try to prop up the different Arab tribes against the German-allied Turks. Major Lawrence, though, knew of tribal warfare and the futility and pain of trying to occupy this region, which was the intent of England after the war. The Arabs were keen to the English tricks of colonialism, and would have fought guerrilla-type warfare if forced to . . . forever. Lawrence instead sought to understand the "Arab mind," a mindset that is to this day much different than our common Western thought process. We can't pretend to understand it.

But what other factors am I missing here? Ah, yes . . . OIL! We must protect our interests and the supply of the stuff we so badly need to fuel our country, our country that is so heavily dependent on oil that we are willing to have our sons and daughters die for it. And what about corporate greed and lobbying as far as the companies that supply our needs in warfare: bullets, bombs, guns, clothes, helmets, medicine . . . and body bags? I don't mean to sound like a bleeding-heart liberal, but it's something to think about. These interests that think nothing of charging us taxpayers $1B for the building of a hospital in Iraq that falls apart two years later (Read The Forever War by Dexter Filkins). These same interests that charge taxpayers $20 per bottle of water that they send to Iraq or Afghanistan. It makes me want to break stuff.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/10/duff_mckagan_surely_there_is_a.php

Them Crooked Vultures and a Super Group of Dudes

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Nov. 12 2009

When I first heard that John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl, and Josh Homme were forming a band last spring, I must say that I was jealous. Are you kidding me?! These three mega-talented and unique figures playing hard rock in a unified and focused group? I was excited, to say the least, from a player's perspective AND as a fan. Then came the inevitable "supergroup" tags.

Lazy journalists like to put a tag on anything they can in an attempt to sum up a whole genre or movement with a quick phrase that will make their job easier and take a swipe at a band in the process. You know, "stoner rock," "grunge," "indie," "hair metal," etc. "Supergroup" conjures a negative image in my mind, and we in Velvet Revolver had to deal with this label in our first year. Fans never called us a supergroup, mind you, only journalists. I've heard this title being bandied about in reference to Them Crooked Vultures, and I think it is a cheap way out.

To label an act a supergroup somehow suggests--to me, anyway--that they were formed to cash in on the members' superstar power. First, when you have been playing in successful bands for a while, your friends and comrades in the field are others like you. These are simply the people that you KNOW!

And NOBODY is cashing in these days. Acts are not selling enough records to turn much profit--if any--and touring is a shrinking business. TCV is in this thing for the right reason, and that is to fucking rock.

Judging from the single, "New Fang," Them Crooked Vultures has a lot to offer a rock scene that is suffering from a lack of the real shit . . . the dirty shit! Did I mention that John Paul Jones is in the band?

John Paul Jones

For those of you who may have lived under a rock for the past 40 years, or were perhaps squirreled away in some hipster scene that disallowed such things as earth-moving grooves, John Paul Jones was the groundbreaking bass player and multi-instrumentalist in Led Zeppelin. JPJ has influenced EVERY great bass player since then, and his bass playing and sense of pocket and melody may never be matched again. To me he was the heart and soul of the band. Zeppelin lore has it that Jones held that band together and helped to make it as musical as it was, giving it a sense of depth and movement that has yet to be matched. Enough said: John Paul Jones is a bad, bad man.

Josh Homme

Josh Homme is someone who has gained a ton of respect in the community of musicians that I am acquainted with, not only for his songwriting and playing skills but as a straight-shooter and a guy who has your back if you are a friend. Josh has Seattle roots. He went to the UW while also playing in Screaming Trees in the mid-'90s before forming the stellar Queens of the Stone Age. Queens, for my money, has been the most influential band, as far as what new bands want to be and sound like, of the last eight or so years. Do I even need to add that he was a founding member of KYUSS? (FYI, everyone says they were into KYUSS when they were happening, but if it were true, the band would have been as big as U2.)

Dave Grohl

Ah, last but far from least, Dave Motherfucking Grohl. The drummer every other drummer, guitar player, and singer I know wishes they were. A songwriter whose verse and riffage flow with impossible ease and consistency. A man who is really just the nicest guy in rock and roll, who still bounces with excitement when some band or artist he likes is either passing through town or putting out a new record.
For these three guys to come together and form a real band--well, hell, it must be like some sort of fairy-dust shit just being at a band practice! Can you imagine? Them Crooked Vultures have created something new and fresh with no obvious nods to any of their past bands. A hard feat, for sure. Yes, you can tell it's JPJ on bass, Josh singing and playing guitar, and Grohl killing the drums. But the overall originality of the band's sound is startlingly refreshing. I sound like a damn rock critic right now, a breed of writer I absolutely detest. These guys are just straight-up cool and pretty fucking righteous, if you ask me.

Duff McKagan: China, Stray Dogs, and Where You Can Find Earth's Most Passionate Rock Fans

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Nov. 19 2009

It seems there are so many things to write about this week that are all rather timely. Instead of picking one topic, then, I am going to give a short rundown of the things that have either piqued my interest and/or personal observations. Here goes . . .

South America

South American rock fans are bar none the best and most passionate in the world. Maybe it is because bands really didn't start going down there until the '90s, or maybe it's because their blood just runs a little hotter. For whatever reason, it's a place I always look forward to playing live.

I just returned from a Loaded tour of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, and this was the first time that I actually was ever able to get out and see some things. Fans down there will surround the hotel that a band stays at and WILL follow you en masse if you decide to take a stroll anywhere. When I was there with VR and GN'R, a walk around town in South America was simply not doable. With Loaded, while we still have those over-anxious fans, we seem to be able to talk to them and calm them down . . . with the help of a translator, of course.

Our first gig there was in Rosario, about a four-hour drive from Buenos Aires. After a beautiful drive through Argentine ranchlands, we arrived in the intellectual center of the country: Rosario.

For some reason, we thought maybe we'd have perhaps a calmer crowd in this studious city. We were wrong. When we got to the theater there, we found it absolutely surrounded by an extremely rowdy bunch of young and heated-up rock fans. We had to enlist a number of huge security guys just to get in the back door.

If any of you know Isaac, our new drummer, you will also know that while huge in talent and smarts, his physical stature is smaller than the rest of the band . . . by a ways. This, coupled with the fact that Isaac had yet to experience real first-hand fan mania, brought me to the realization that maybe this first gig in South America may have freaked him the fuck out. Being so far from home and feeling the strain of jet-lag alone can freak a guy out, but add to the equation people screaming your name at maximum volume and actually trying to get a piece of hair or clothing from your person . . . it's nutty, to say the least. A life experience for sure. Isaac was killer that night, though, and so was the crowd.

On our trip back to Buenos Aires the next day, we stopped at a truck/rest stop along the highway and ran into a couple of the stray dogs that are actually quite rampant in that part of the world. These animals look rather well-fed, but we all gave them parts of our sandwiches and patted their heads. Of the 20 or so wild dogs that we encountered on our nine-day trip, none seemed underfed, and all were quite tame and sweet as could be. This is something that I was never able to experience on other tours, and I am thankful that I was able to finally get out and see some of this part of the world. Absolutely beautiful country and excellent people.

Obama: China and the Trade Deficit

President Obama has been in China this week, and he has certainly got his work cut out for himself. He has a myriad of issues that he wants to address over there, and macroeconomic issues seem to have gotten the biggest "play" as far as news headlines and the like.

China has become the biggest holder of U.S. debt in the last couple of years. With nearly $800 billion worth of U.S. treasury bills, China rakes in roughly $50 billion a year in interest from those holdings alone.

China has also recently attached their yuan to the worth of the U.S. dollar, where other world currencies hold their own worth according to their specific countries' economic ups and downs. Many say that this is a false and unsubstantiated inflation of the yuan--that there is no economic basis for the yuan to be worth what the dollar is.

The inflation of the yuan makes outsourcing to China, of production jobs and the like, much cheaper for American companies; hence, many jobs here are thought to have been lost to the more inexpensive Chinese counterpart. The Chinese government also subsidizes many of these jobs, making them appear even cheaper to the world manufacturing market. This is also a major factor in why Chinese goods here are so cheap and U.S. goods over there are so expensive. Does that make sense?

The WTO has set up guidelines for fair trade, and countries in the WTO are expected to play fair. China has largely ignored these guidelines, seeing itself right now as the "big kid on the block"--holding all the cards (debt) and feeling no real pressure to change how things are working for them right now. This is the downside for us and other countries affected by trade with China.

But here is one of the rubs: China could sell off large chunks of their T-bill holdings, which would then send the U.S. dollar plummeting in value as there would be an instant and greater "supply" of our currency in the market--BUT with their yuan attached to the U.S. dollar, their currency too would feel the same negative impact.

Obama is now over there trying to forge a better partnership with China, and he has certainly got his hands full.

Them Crooked Vultures

For those of you in Seattle this weekend, may I suggest checking out TCV at the Paramount on Friday night. See my online column from last week (or in our print issue this week) if you want some info on the band. This much talent on one stage cannot be missed.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/11/duff_mckagan_china_stray_dogs.php

The Making of a Rhythm Section
By Duff McKagan
Wednesday, Nov. 25 2009

Last weekend, I played a benefit show in L.A. to raise money for teenage runaways in Hollywood. LAYN (Los Angeles Youth Network) is a nonprofit that provides housing and vocational training, along with emotional support, for some of our young who have perhaps slipped through the cracks and ended up on these hardened streets.

The thing that was exceptionally different at this show, for me at least, was that Slash and I would be playing with original Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler for the first time since our Appetite for Destruction days . . . a long fucking time ago indeed! This whole mini-reunion got me thinking back to a time when life just seemed a bit simpler, and my goals, while grandiose, all seemed in some way to be a destiny of sorts.

After first moving to Hollywood in the fall of 1984, I was pretty much left to my own devices to find other musicians to play with, not to mention just simply to make a friend or two in this new and strange place. The luster of that year's Summer Olympics had worn off, and the police presence had virtually vacated Hollywood proper. The floodgates were wide open for criminals and thugs and general unwatched anarchy. This was my new world . . . alone.

For this story's sake, I will skip through the first job I landed down there, working for "the Hungarians," a tight-knit Mafioso group that somehow sensed that I would hustle around town for them and keep all my errands a secret. To this day, I have told not a soul what I did for them. I like to breathe. No, this story should begin after I first met Steven and Slash through a newspaper ad just a few weeks after I arrived there.

It should be known that the bands I'd played in to this point were bands like the Fastbacks, the Fartz, and Ten Minute Warning--alternative music, I suppose, but years before the term "alternative" was actually used, and subsequently OVERused!

Meeting two long-hair rockers from Hollywood was culture shock for me, as I am quite sure that my short blue hair and long pimp coat was a shock for them. But an almost instant alliance was made. I think that we were SO different from each other that our minds were open enough to actually get turned on to to each others' trains of musical thought. One thing DID have to change for me, however, and that was Steven's double-kick drum kit with WAY too may rack-toms and cymbals. Lucky for me, when we formed GN'R a few months later, Izzy Stradlin shared my horror of this "hesher" drum kit. We started our plot to hide parts of his drum kit. Every time poor Steven would show up to band practice, his kit was progressively smaller, until he was left with only the bare essentials--what would become his signature "thing" and influence modern rock drummers a few short years later . . . a GROOVE!

But I hadn't really found my "thing" on bass yet either. It seemed that the timing for Steven and I to sort of meld as an actual rhythm section was perfect. Listening and playing along with things like Cameo, Prince, and Sly and the Family Stone became our gauge and music school. Hours before the rest of the band would come for rehearsal, Steven and I would be there, mesmerized by what seemed to us at the time a visionary and funky quest. We became close as brothers in that first year of writing and rehearsing and playing shitty little dive-clubs.

That mini-era in L.A. music spawned another really interesting rhythm duo in Jane's Addiction's Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins. I suppose competition makes for a better "product," and Adler and I would go watch them play whenever possible. It made us better. I think we made them better, too. Neither band was too far removed from the influence of Led Zeppelin, and when you are looking at John Paul Jones and John Bonham as a benchmark (no mater how unattainable), you will push yourself as hard and far as you possibly can.

When Steven came to rehearsal last Friday for that benefit show, the scars of his hard-lived life faded instantly, replaced by his kid-like grin. The drugs over the years had done every diabolical trick they could, but they did not steal his talent and backbeat. It was a pleasure and an honor to play with my brother again after a 20-year absence. He absolutely killed it last Sunday night at the Avalon Theater in Hollywood. I pulled for him. Slash pulled for him. The whole audience pulled for him. In that short instant, three teenage runaways from the past paid it forward to a wide-eyed audience of kids who could see what can be achieved when the strains of life are eased and replaced by dreams and hope.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/11/the_making_of_a_rhythm_section.php

Rock in Rio, Billy Idol, and Loving What You've Got

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Dec. 3 2009

As our flight took us somewhere above Central America, the pilot came on to tell us the United States had just attacked Iraq in something that the Pentagon dubbed "Operation: Desert Storm." It was January 17, 1991.

Before the Internet was common knowledge, and before there was a computer in virtually every home (as there is now), playing rock shows in faraway places like Brazil was an exotic endeavor, to say the least. Flying all the way down there to headline two nights at the Rock in Rio Festival was pretty surreal. We just had no idea if Guns N' Roses had fans in this part of the world or not.

My first trip to many foreign lands came as a result of the growing popularity of my band. For most of the places we first traveled to, however, we had a good idea of our fan base because of the well-tracked record-sales data from each region (yes, artists used to sell records!). In pretty much all of South America, though--back then and to this day--records, CD's, T-shirts, and whatever else, are all pirated. As a result, and with no MySpace "hits" or Twitter follower counts, we just had no idea how many fans were going to show up to see us.

I hate to fly. I have always been claustrophobic. A plane is a metal tube with no way out. I used to self-medicate my condition with whatever was available. And after a long trip like this, the constant to-and-fro and drag and frum, I am exhausted. The plane lands, and thousands of really emotional fans are waiting. I am overwhelmed. They are overjoyed. I feel like a fucking Martian after traveling for so long and feeding my body with mind-numbing intoxicants. I've got to get to my hotel so that I can get my head around this whole thing.

Funny as it sounds now, Billy Idol was a touchstone for me. Not that he ever knew this, and it wasn't like we were real close, but I knew him enough and I knew that he was also playing at the RIR. Sometimes even in my own band, I would feel completely alone and alienated. The fact that Billy was down there gave me a sense of solidness somehow. I have never talked about this, and now it seems a little funny and goofy.

If I could really paint a picture of what things are like constantly touring and being claustrophobic and being adored and loved and being tugged around and loving back as hard as you can . . . and filling my body with all the bad stuff, the picture that I'd paint would resemble some kind of upside-down stairs manned by a bloated U.S. Customs agent. With my name in large letters on top his list of people to apprehend. I suffered a gradual-but-steady loss of sanity during about three or four of those early years. Things that are plainly insane to me now were absolutely normal, ho-hum events back then.

Back to my point of not knowing if we had fans in Brazil up to that point: Apparently we did . . . and lots of them. The Maracana Stadium in Rio is the biggest stadium in the world, and we were playing two nights there.

In the year prior to these gigs, sadly, we had to replace our founding drummer because of acute drug problems. We had to replace him so that we could finally get on with making our new record and touring. Providence was with us at long last when we found Matt Sorum, who had previously been playing with The Cult. Matt is one hell of a drummer, and held the constitution and road fortitude to keep up with the rest of us. These two shows in Rio, 175,000 per night, were Matt's first as our drummer. Trial by fire . . . on steroids.

Those first gigs started what has become a long-running love affair with my chosen place in my chosen profession, and South America as a whole. On that first trip, I came to realize what absolute passion and honesty the average rock fan down there has about music and life on a grander scheme.

That first foray down there for me made many lasting memories--both good and bad, I suppose. I grimace sometimes when people make assumptions about how fancy my band was at that point. How we must've felt like princes, and that everything had to have been handed to us carte blanche. For me, it's a story of "you always want what you don't have." That is to say, at that time there were friends of mine who I would have switched places with. Friends whose life seemed normal and on-track while mine seemed to be spiraling out of control: the choking pressure on my chest, and the charcoal-black and sickened stomach.

The funny thing is: Having lived through all of it and learned all my hard-won lessons, life for me, like anyone else, is indeed what you make of it. My dizziness and claustrophobic moments are still with me. But they no longer own me.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/12/rock_in_rio_billy_idol_and_lov.php#more

Army of Prose: How I Kicked My Habit(s), With a Little Help From London, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Dec. 10 2009

In 1994, I suddenly felt myself gasping for air after what seemed like an eternity dunked underneath a green thick pond of muck. My 10 years of constant skirmish with vice had finally ceased fire with an unsteady truce. I was sober but thirsty. My mind had almost atrophied from the lack of stimulation. I felt that I needed to read.

Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson were indeed great authors, but to me these were crazy stories told by even crazier men. Sure, I DID read some when I was drunk, but only by these authors, as to read anything by anyone else would certainly only make me feel isolated and insane. Thompson and Bukowski made me feel sane compared to them.

Now that my life had taken a turn for the better, I wanted to read what I was missing out on. I started to think of all of the required reading that high schoolers were made to do. I missed high school. No, it's not like I was forlorn for the DAYS of high school; I actually did not attend but five semesters of high school. D.H. Lawrence? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Jack London? Where do I start? Fiction? Nonfiction?

To be honest, when I first got sober, someone gave me the Ken Burns PBS Civil War set on VHS. I was by that time very much alone in Los Angeles, as I felt it prudent to throw out my black address book filled to the brim with the names and phone numbers of people who would probably not want me being sober. No one likes to drink or drug alone. I would go to my bedroom around 10 at night, pop in one of those video tapes, and become enthralled in the quagmire and bloody entrails that was the Civil War. I could not get enough.

I started to read stories of war. Books about prisoners of the Japanese or on the Bataan Death March. I was totally and completely enthralled. I would move from the First World War to the Second, from the Civil War to the slave trade, the Revolution to Vietnam. When I happened upon a book on the Spanish Civil War by Ernest Hemingway, it at once dawned on me that I wasn't reading much that had any real style and subtlety. I was reminded that I had yet to delve into my initial plan: read some of that required reading that I'd heard so much about.

For Whom the Bell Tolls was the book that for me suddenly unlocked the world of literary eloquence and elegance. The beauty that Hemingway described was surely see-able. When he wrote of hunger and pain, I sat with sudden pangs and soreness and dread. The cadence of his writing style awoke me to the rhythm that a well-turned phrase and paragraph could dance and saunter to.

I ravenously consumed The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Green Hills of Africa, and The Old Man and the Sea. I read Hemingway's poems. I read his short stories. I consumed two huge biographies on the man . . . even though one was unreadable.

I read White Fang by Jack London and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I agreed with his take on the American Dream, as my own dreams had nearly and recently almost been shattered--my own dreams that so mirrored in my mind Gatsby's or Fitzgerald's or whomever's.

In my new and often lonely world of desert-island sobriety, I was at last connecting with something. I would feel triumphant as I rode the rollercoaster of these amazing and well-told tales, heartbroken when someone died or fell lovelorn and lost. If I was not yet finding MY place in the world, I was for sure finding places and things and people that I could relate to, despise, or aspire to in these many great books that I read in my first two years of sobriety.

Maybe this was a great way too for me not to have to face some of the things in my business and professional world. Things I had never been trained to face head-on and without help. These great authors gave me a confidence to use my own voice when speaking and to use intelligent words, as opposed to a raised voice that really only masked fear. A fear wrought with ignorance of how to deal with an insane situation.

Reading for me was, and to this day remains, my place of solitude. At the end of every day, whether on tour or at home with my family, I always have that time alone at night when a great author or piece of nonfiction will act as a mediation and a time to arm myself for trials to come.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/12/army_of_prose_how_i_kicked_my.php

I Am a Freak for the Giving of the Holiday Season

By Duff McKagan

Thursday, Dec. 17 2009

I love Christmas. I get dewy every year when my family and I watch It's a Wonderful Life. When I was single and my life was upside-down in my 20s, I would cry when I watched that movie--for the sheer beauty of the message and because I thought I would never have something like that for myself. My tears now are of happiness that I seemingly have it all: a family and the means to make enough each year to provide for them.

I am on a plane right now flying back to Seattle. My first event this Saturday will be a benefit show (with Loaded) that KISW has selflessly and tirelessly organized to raise money for the poor families of those four slain Lakewood police officers. There is a man on the plane right now who had a huge fit when they had to gate-check his bag from the plane because it was too big to fit above. He was screaming for the names of the flight crew, who frankly were just trying to help the guy.

I think we should all perhaps take a step back during this season to realize what things we should be at least a little thankful for. I was thinking of these cops' families when this man on the plane was losing it . . . over a piece of luggage. Luggage he will get when we get off this plane in two hours. These families will never get back what they lost. Maybe it is unfair of me to make fun of flight guy's predicament, but after the crew told him his bag would be fine, they also tried to wish him a Merry Christmas. He was not, let's say, accepting of the holiday tiding. Poor guy.

I have been a BIG fan of the Toys for Tots program ever since I could afford to take a trip to a toy store before Christmas and bring a toy to the nearest fire station--maybe because my dad was a fireman and I have been cognizant of Toys for Tots since I was a little kid. It is now an ongoing tradition in my family; my girls LOVE to go to Target and help me pick out the toys. They make sure that we buy cookies and stuff for the firemen, too. The firemen think my girls are pretty cool, and they are right in that assumption.

This year, Washington's Toys for Tots program is facing a dire shortage of 60,000 gifts as it begins distributing to the 108,000 kids served by King County's Department of Health and Human Services. The Marine Corps Reserve and various fire departments are pleading for new unwrapped toys for children from newborn to age 13. Check the Toys for Tots Web site for drop-off locations, or take them to your local fire station.

Last year, I wrote of a family I became acquainted with who had spent their life savings on health care for their 17-year-old daughter with cancer. The Seattle Ronald McDonald House was their last chance for at least a roof over their heads while their daughter went through treatment at Children's Hospital. Last week, I stopped by the front office of the RMH to see what might be needed as far as donations. Yeah, they need a LOT.

Families who come to the RMH are, as I said, desperate not only for their child's chance for a cure, but broke. RMH provides an on-site apartment or larger townhome, and an open pantry in the main house, rec center, front office. On their list:

Food:

--bagged or boxed pasta
--pasta sauce
--canned food of all sorts
--frozen dinners
--cake mix
--canned meats
--canned, boxed or bottled juices
--condensed milk
--jarred baby food
etc.

Housekeeping times:

--sheets for queen and twin beds
--an Oreck 600 vacuum and carpet-cleaner combo
--six blenders
--new plates, cups, glasses, and silverware
--brooms and mops
--dustbins
--toilet paper and paper towels
--sponges
--pillows
etc.

The Ronald McDonald House is located at 5130 40th Ave. N.E.

It may be a bit gauche for me to ask you, my readers, to help out with things I think are important this holiday season. I am quite sure that many of you give to charities and such that are family traditions, or perhaps even just help out someone you know. Maybe you help out at a mission or church or synagogue or temple. Maybe you spend time praying or meditating for those less fortunate or who have recently lost a loved one. Maybe you just smile at someone when they need it, or man a crisis hotline. The recession has hit us all hard these last two years, and a donation in cash, toys, or food certainly may be not even remotely doable for many of us, which is a big reason, I am sure, that Toys for Tots is running so low this season.

I must say now that I have been honored to have you ALL as readers and friends during this last year and a half at Seattle Weekly. It has been a journey for me, and I hope I can at least keep things interesting and thought-provoking. Life is an adventure. Happy Holidays to you all. Now I've got to find a Santa suit that has fashion-forward tapered-bottom pants and a jacket that accentuates my "pluses"!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/12/i_am_a_freak_for_the_giving_of.php#more

Why Duff McKagan Left Seattle for Los Angeles

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan, Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 10:55AM

In the Autumn of 1984, I moved from the familiar comfort of the Seattle punk scene to Los Angeles. Many assume that leaving the oft-stormy weather of the northwest for the more tranquil and sunny Southern California would be a no-brainer. A guy like myself could throw caution to the wind and basically go anywhere I wanted, well, anywhere that my beat-up car could get to, and anywhere that had a music scene that had more infastructure and less heroin than Seattle did then.

Let me first explain that I did not leave Seattle because there was a lack of talent or originality. Seattle in the early '80s probably had the most diverse and supportive scene in America. If the place where your band rehearsed at got shut-down or was otherwise made unavailable, it was never a problem to find some other band to help out. At a gig, if any piece of some band's equipment broke down, replacement gear was as close as the next band's gear on the bill.

No, I left Seattle because as a result of the early-'80s economic recession in the area, clubs and youth halls were shutting down. The streets of Seattle were dire and empty. My bandmates, roommates and girlfriends all started on the smack. and I lost a new guitar amp that I had worked hard for. I was working, paying rent, doing weekend tours, and coming back to theft from friends at home. So I left the city I love for a city I knew no one in or nothing about.

My first couple weeks in L.A. were a sort of recon mission. My next-oldest brother Matt lived in Northridge, and he got me a job my first day in town as a cook at a Black Angus. For anyone who knows, Northridge is actually quite far from Hollywood, especially in a piece of shit Ford Maverick with no brakes and a leaky oil pan. I would go down to Hollywood to go to a club and often just drive into the hills afterward and sleep in my car, because I was afraid of breaking down on the freeway in the middle of the night. On top of this, I was not yet 21, and therefore had to come up with crafty ways to get into clubs to see a gig.

Back then, we people from Seattle just plain looked different. I remember when bands like Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys would come through Seattle, they would always comment of the different look of the crowd. Now that I was in L.A., I decided to use this 'different' look to convince people checking IDs at club doors that I was not from the United States, and thus spoke no English.

When asked for an ID, I would produce my sunglasses and a puzzled look. They must have thought I was Swedish or something but, no shit, it worked more often than not. To further explain how 'different' we Seattleites looked, upon first meeting Slash in response to a Musicians Wanted ad, his girlfriend Yvonne assumed I was gay and asked me about it after a couple of tugs off of a bottle of vodka. I almost pissed myself with laughter, and it took me a few days to actually convince her that I was a fan of the ladies..but that is another story.

I had gone to California to play shows and be a roadie prior to my move to LA. I was by no means a neophyte, nor was I in the least bit naive. But when I did try to identify some of the things in the LA club-scene that I left in Seattle--like camaraderie or at least helpfulness from others--I was pretty much rebuffed in a wholesale manner. No, Los Angeles was a cutthroat operation, and I would soon learn to play by those rules, although I would try to convince myself that I was still 'me'. The band I was soon to help form was comprised of fairly likeminded young men.

I must say, when Soundgarden first came to play in LA when I could see them (1989 I think), I was jealous yet proud. Jealous that Seattle had turned into a place a band could be FROM again, and it had turned that way without me there. I was proud of just how great Soundgarden was, and that all of my bragging about how cool Seattle was and how much raw talent was there finally had a face. As Mother Love Bone, Alice In Chains, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam all began putting out major-label releases, the rest of the world found out about the little secret I left behind.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/12/why_duff_mckagan_left_seattle.php

Starting Over

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Thursday, Dec. 31 2009

Somehow, I had to turn everything around. Two weeks spent in the hospital doing a no-blink stare confronted with the fact that things in my life would have to change drastically left me exhausted, confused, and actually somewhat exhilarated.

In my 20s, there were two things I never really had to come to grips with or deal with: taking responsibility for my actions and thinking about what I would do other than music. I just didn't think that I would be around to deal with this shit.

After being mired in and shackled with the constant blackness of drugs and drink for as long as I was, a person just gives up. Sure, there is a weird hope for things like a miracle cure, but that is as close as you get to hope. A tragic event is more likely the case. And bracing for something like death happening to you gets somewhat softened by the cushioning narcotic fuzz. But suddenly here I was: sober and in a doctor's care, my two-week withdrawal softened by intravenous morphine for the pain and Librium for the delirium tremors.

They released me from the hospital in May of 1994 with the hope that I would go directly to a drug and alcohol rehab that they had set up for me somewhere near Olympia. I thanked my doctor for all his help. The two weeks alone in the hospital had done as much for me as any rehab could possibly do. I was done. This was the break and miracle I had lost all hope of attaining. Now that I had been given this slight reprieve and separation from the putrid terror of addiction, it was time to turn some shit around--but how?

Back in the winter of '94, I had bought a house back home in Seattle, the place that I had hoped a miracle would happen--a house that I would either die soon in or have a family in. Two diametrically opposed situations, for sure, but such was my structure of thought back then. Here I finally was now, in my home and sober with a chance of starting it all anew.

One of the first things I did was go to the grocery store to buy food. It was a novel idea at the time, for I hadn't really shopped for food in about 10 years. Now here I was, 30 years old, and probably doing the first good grocery shopping in my life. I was an adult with a credit card, a checkbook, and an ATM card. I could buy whatever I wanted in the store, but I had no idea where to start. I thought that everyone was staring at me. It had been so long that I had been anywhere sober that I didn't know how to act or how to deal. It was like being on LSD. The lights in the store were blaringly bright to me and the music seemed to be playing hidden messages. I bought some milk and barbecue sauce and cigarettes, and that is all. My shirt was drenched in sweat and I was having a full-blown panic attack. As I drove my car home, I stiffly steered my machine out of the way of three accidents as I rode the brakes the whole way. I could smell my brake pads when I got home.

Something that I never really thought about was that just simply functioning in life again was going to be my biggest hurdle. I guess you always think that avoiding bars and drug dealers and the craving will be the things that impede sober progress. Yes, though those things would be a challenge, I first had to figure out things like what time to go to bed and what to do with my time. How was I going to play music again? Could I do it sober? How do I talk to someone on the phone now? Who do I call? Should I tell people that I am sober? Should I just go away somewhere and disappear? How do people view me after living such a reckless existence? What the fuck should I do?

My band, Guns N' Roses, was in shambles, and suddenly the dynamic had changed. Not too long after I got out of the hospital, Axl came up to Seattle to visit me. The challenge was how we were going to make a new record and what direction we were going to go musically. We couldn't very well do anything at the time because Slash was out doing a Snakepit tour and battling his own addiction. In previous years, there had seemed to be a fail-proof alliance and understanding within our band; we knew that at the end of the day we only had each other to rely on. Now I was doing sober things with Axl, like riding mountain bikes and eating healthy food and talking on the phone about a productive musical direction. That sense of family and trust had recently been tainted by management dealings and other wedges that did everything possible to vanquish our bonds.

Looking back now, it is all so fucking clear. But then and there in the moment, I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that outside forces could be so selfish and money-grubbing. These were the hard lessons I would finally learn to live with, although never by.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/12/starting_over.php

New Year, New Dog, New Furniture

By Duff McKagan Thursday, Jan. 7 2010 @ 3:44AM

For the last 10 years, my wife and I have dreamed and schemed and saved to remodel our 83 year-old Germanic Tudor house in Seattle. While yes, I did buy this house back in 1994 before I had a real prospect of a wife and kids, my hope was in fact that one day it would happen. It did.

The house was a fine size when both the girls were tiny, but as they grew, the walls just seemed to get a little closer and the ceilings not quite as high as I once thought. My first thought and hope was to put a new master bedroom where our massive attic is, extending the staircase up a floor and adding a master bathroom and huge windows to an even bigger view that we'd now have.

After shopping around, we found a great architect who instantly saw our vision and enhanced our dream with structural ideas that we neophytes had no idea could exist. Our next step was city permits and getting bids from able contractors, which went along smoothly until we saw how much it would cost just for the structural support we would have to fortify from the foundation of the house. As they say in this business, it was cost-prohibitive. Yeah, expensive like nobody's business, in fact. The structural engineer barked out a price something like $450K. I drooped in my chair; my contractor saw that he was losing a client; and my architect apologized profusely. Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars before I was to add even one square foot?! A third-floor master was now definitely out of the question.

My contractor called me a few days after we had met with the structural engineer and got the bad news. He told us that he had an idea of just simply raising our ceilings, updating our second floor, and moving a few doorways. All this, he claimed, would really make things feel a lot bigger and roomier. We could put in new carpet and refinish our beautiful and original hardwood floors and walnut doors and trim. We could paint the house and restore some of the original ornate light sconces that had been just sitting in the basement, update our heating system, and even add air conditioning (our house gets sun all day in the summer). The price was right, and I knew from what I had seen of some of his other jobs that this contractor could work miracles on old Tudors. I agreed . . . let's move ahead!

For you who may read my column, you will certainly know that we McKagans have a little dog named Buckley. He is a great young lad, but as all dog owners do, we went through the hell of house-training a puppy. Buckley really didn't get the message for an exorbitantly long time. Finally he got it, and we can take him with us without having to worry that our little buddy will do his business in the house or hotel room.

Santa Claus brought our dog Buckley three years ago when our oldest daughter turned 9. Our younger daughter therefore has been pining for a dog of her own when she turned 9. Her logic was sound, and I am after all a sucker for my girls. She wanted a pug puppy, and last fall my wife and I started searching for a puppy that would be the perfect age at Christmastime. No small feat for a person who travels for a living. Checking out different litters of pugs from breeders in the Northwest while trying to tour is a royal pain in the ass! Ah, the things we do for our kids. But, back to the house.

The work began on our second floor this past fall, and would be done by December 15, in time for us to come back to Seattle for Christmas. We came up a few times while the work was getting done; my wife picked out great carpeting and floor-stain colors, and we placed all the new wall-sconce lighting. The quality of work was second to none, and when we arrived for Christmas break, the house looked like a damn Four Seasons.

Stunning and pristine, all the wood and door hardware and light fixtures were buffed and shined. My daughters were elated over their new bedrooms. For the first time in our lives, they even started making their beds every morning and picking up their clothes off the floors without us telling them to do it. Buckley is of course housetrained, so we didn't have to worry about him. Wow, maybe we could have a house and lifestyle like you see in movies or Esquire magazine, where everything is perfect and clean, no one's hair is messy, and no one leaves their underwear on the floor or a dirty dish on the countertop. The house even smelled amazing!

The next step was to finally get some new furniture. The stuff we have has been worn hard and totally used and abused after 12 years with kids and a dog. Anyone who has kids knows it's a fool's dream to get new furniture when you have small children. Macaroni and cheese mixed with carpet and grape juice is a stain that will not come out, trust me.

Now that the house is clean and new ... we found a girl pug puppy a ferry-ride away that would be the perfect age by Christmas. Susan and I checked her out during Thanksgiving, and I made plans with the breeder to pick up the dog on Christmas Eve. My oldest brother kept the puppy for us on Christmas Eve night, and I picked her up early Christmas morning so that it would appear that Santa brought the pup (I did all this BEFORE the girls woke up). All of this went off without a hitch.

We have a rough idea of how to house-train a puppy from the Buckley debacle. But he is a mellow dog from a breed bred to be foot-warmers for the elite back in the 1600s. They were trained to just sort of sit around. Pugs, on the other hand, are quite the opposite. And we were all so excited to have a new dog that we sort of forgot that little puppies have to go to the bathroom ALL THE TIME and anywhere they please! Puppies are sneaky and quick, and little human girls will hide the fact that a new puppy pooped on the brand-new carpet in their room on numerous occasions because they don't want Pup to get in trouble or not be able sleep in their room. Little human girls will do anything so that the new dog can hang out in their rooms or on the couch with them for as long as possible. When a new dog pees in the house, the old dog will urinate right on top of it to mark its territory.

We just remodeled. We just started living in a clean house with potty-trained residents. And we go ahead bring home a baby pug. I guess the new furniture can wait.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/01/new_year_new_dog_new_furniture.php

Duff visited Gilby in the hospital... 8)

The Wheels on My Bike ...

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan Thursday, Jan. 14 2010 @ 9:10AM

A couple of years ago, I became the proud owner of a black 2006 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle. And why not? I am sober and of relatively good faculties and judgment. A lot of my good friends ride motorcycles, and I would sometimes feel left out. No, the time was definitely perfect for me to start my life as a motorcycle enthusiast.
The man who has produced everything Loaded has ever done is Martin Feveyear. Jupiter, his studio here in Seattle, lies in the heart of Wallingford, and in summer the area becomes a veritable crossroads for bikers going to and from anywhere else in Seattle. In 2001, I made the first Loaded record with Martin, and he would lay out photos of a bike, still in pieces, that he was putting together. The story goes that this same bike had been in Martin's family from the day he was born in the south of England. It was a 1951 Sunbeam SX, and his family's lone mode of transportation!

Some of Martin's first memories are of him and his sister riding in a sidecar attached to the old Sunbeam with his mom and dad on the bike. For family vacations, they would hook a trailer to the back, sometimes stopping to push the whole contraption up long hills in the English countryside. That bike just didn't have the horsepower for a family of four, a sidecar, AND a trailer.

By 2001, Martin's dad had shipped the whole bike in pieces to Martin, who was going to do his best to fix the broken bits and put it all back in working order. I only say that Martin was going to do his best, because while he is exceedingly proficient in the studio, a mechanic he is not. By trial and many errors, though, Martin did eventually succeed in getting the 'Beam back in tip-top shape, and to this day that bike gets him around town probably 60 percent of the time. He even took his 6-year-old daughter back to England this year and put her in the sidecar of a vintage Sunbeam, and together they toured the country. Pretty cool.

My point to the Martin story is that I watched all this go down, and started to query myself why I wasn't riding. That is when I got my bike. Sure, I had ridden motorcycles before, but was in no way an expert. During my late teens and 20s, I would say that it was a GREAT and GENIUS thing that I did NOT have a motorcycle. That would have been an accident waiting to happen. Besides, you can't drink a cocktail or all those other bad things while shifting gears on a bike. The one time I did get on a bike during this era was when I got on a cop's bike during a GN'R video shoot ("Don't Cry," I think). The poor cop was just working the shoot, and he let me take his bike for a spin. I crashed it...

It wasn't just Martin who inspired me. A lot of my friends in Seattle would get their bikes out of the garage and fire them up and gallivant around town, while I was seemingly missing out on all the fun (FYI, spring in Seattle is anytime it gets over 40 degrees and it's not raining).

A year and a half ago, my band Velvet Revolver did a summer co-headlining tour with Alice in Chains, whose drummer, Sean Kinney, is one of those Seattle bike friends I'm talking about. Over the past several years we have become good friends, and this tour gave us a chance to hang out a lot together. He and I and his drum tech, Tavis LeMay, all decided to bring our motorcycles on that tour, and I got to ride around a ton of beautiful parts of the U.S.

It's funny how places where usually you would just sit around backstage all day could suddenly transform because of access via two wheels with friends. Riding in a state park in Alabama instead of listening to drums getting tuned all day over a PA system is a good thing indeed. On days off, we would ride around in whatever city we were in and go to dinner or whatever else. It staved off the loneliness of being apart from my family while opening up a great new view of places I had been before but never really seen.

I found a great deal on a sleeker and faster bike down here in Los Angeles last year. L.A. is no doubt a much more dangerous place to ride, because people in cars down here are reckless drivers in a big way. I got a call yesterday that my friend Gilby Clarke (a former GN'R guitarist) got in a bad motorcycle accident when a truck pulled out and took a left in front of him. When I went to see him in the hospital on Monday night, Gilby further told me that the guy in the truck just took off, leaving the scene of the accident. My friend "Biker" Tim (whom I have written about in previous columns), also got in a bike accident recently. Maybe I will sell this bike down here after all.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/01/the_wheels_on_my_bike.php

Taking Iraq War Vets to the Summit
By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan, Thursday, Jan. 21 2010 @ 8:51AM

In the past, I have written a few times about some of the adventures I have been able to experience because of my friend Tim Medvetz. For those of you who don't know him from the Discovery Channel series Everest Beyond the Limit that aired a couple of years ago, he was not only a team member of that Mt. Everest expedition, he also summited the mountain in 2007--an amazing feat for anyone, and for this man in some respects even more so.

I met Tim a few years ago through a mutual best friend, Richard Stark, and it immediately became evident that we shared the same sense of adventure and humor. Tim was fresh from summiting Everest, and I was full of questions for him that night (mixing humor and wanderlust from me may come in the form of "Everest, huh? Cool! Was it high?" Stupid for sure, but Tim dug my line of questions/humor . . . I think).

Later that summer, Tim and Richard rode their Harleys through Seattle and stayed with the family McKagan (our house is now dubbed "Northwest headquarters" because, well, with Richard and Tim, what is mine is theirs and likewise). This prolonged hangout gave Tim and me more time to work on our comedic duo routine, and it gave me time to learn a bit more about Tim.

You see, Tim and Richard were to be taking a ferry from Bellingham up to Alaska, where they would continue their bike trip across Canada and down to New York. It turns out that when this ferry gets to Alaska, one must drive through a slice of Canada to get back into Alaska again. Well, this is when I found out Tim used to be a member of a very famous outlaw bike gang . . . er, club. Canada doesn't allow those kind, apparently, and Tim and Richard found themselves face-down with guns drawn on them at that border, and eventually back on that same three-day ferryride, southbound, back to the Northwest headquarters.

His story since 2001 is pretty unbelievable.

In September 2001, Tim got hit by a car while riding his motorcycle down here in L.A. He suffered tremendous head, back, and leg injuries. He woke up in the hospital only to see a bunch of nurses and doctors gathered around the TV set in his room. As his vision started to clear, he became cognizant of the images of a Trade Center building in NYC falling to the ground. He faced that same despair we all felt, and on top of that, the doctors said they would have to amputate a foot, put a steel plate in his head, and put a steel-mesh cage around his lower spine.

After being threatened with grievous bodily harm, the doctors found a way to save Tim's foot, but only just. His ankle is fused permanently. Doctors told him that his physical activities would forever be limited to a couch, basically. Ah, but Tim was reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer while he was in that hospital bed, and vowed then and there to climb Mt. Everest.

After being discharged, Tim went to Brazil to study jiujitsu with the Grace family for two years, AND became a certified dive instructor and skydiver. I think he did some time in a Brazilian prison too . . . just for kicks.

After his stint in Brazil, he came back to NYC to run the door at the world famous Hogs and Heifers bar before departing to Nepal to learn the ropes of high-altitude climbing. He also spent six months in veritable silence in a monastery there. Silence is not Tim's strong suit. His time in Nepal was followed by a year in Thailand at a live-in kickboxing school. It was now time for him to somehow get up Everest.

Tim joined a team that was going to attempt Mt. Everest in 2006, and maybe this incredible story should be left to another stand-alone column. Suffice it to say nothing comes easy to Tim, and his journey through India to get to Katmandu was filled with scrapes and triumphs. When he did finally get on the team, it turned out that The Discovery Channel happened to be filming this expedition. Tim eventually garnered worldwide fandom as the most intense and nonconforming member of that team. In 2007, he finally realized his hospital-bed dream and summited Mt. Everest.

Over the course of the following year, 2008, Tim, Richard, and I got together more and more often as friends who shared an interest in things like the outdoors, sports, and music. But most important, we all seem to share a sense of family, brotherhood, and honor, things that seem at times to be missing too often in this hyper-fast information age.

Eventually, Tim invited me on a training hike or two. It was on these hikes, and the times that Tim would come to visit my family, that I began to understand the true character that this man has somehow contained under that flesh. Tim got me up my very first winter summit last year, and without him being there, it would have been only a fraction of the fun. Honestly, I probably would not have made it to the top of that mountain without his humor-filled chiding and hard-won expertise.

I found out on these hikes another thing about Tim: He has another much grander and more selfless dream. After seeing a TV special on U.S. soldiers who have lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tim was inspired to get up and at least try to help. Remember, Tim was told that he would be an invalid himself. He knew what these kids were facing emotionally when they finally got back home to their mom's couch in Minnesota or wherever, limbless and aimless and suffering myriad emotional difficulties.

Tim has now started a foundation where he himself will attempt all the world's seven highest summits WITH a wounded veteran along for the climb. We are talking about single and double-leg amputees--young men who want to overcome for themselves and carry the message home to their fallen brethren. A message of hope and inspiration, if nothing else.

Over this last year, I have ridden along with Tim on the ups and downs and highs and lows of trying and finally succeeding in getting his "Heroes Project" up and running. Last week he came over to the house with a hand-shot DVD of his first two "Seven Summit" attempts with wounded U.S. veterans of the Iraq War. I was stunned by what I saw. I am proud of my friend.

Tim is a man who, through his own battles with injuries that could have set him back forever on a couch in a fit of despair and depression, really knows what these wounded warriors are up against. He does this not for glory for himself, but indeed, as I have gotten to really know Tim, for the betterment of mankind as a whole.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/01/taking_iraq_war_vets_to_the_su.php#more

Duff for President...

The Future: Hawks, Rock, and a McKagan/Novoselic Ticket In 2012

By Duff McKagan Thursday, Jan. 28 2010

Sometimes I just can't find that one defining thing to write about. It is often at this point, when I can't focus, that I realize that a bunch of stuff is all going on at once. For instance:

Music: "I think records were just a little bubble in time, and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from making records, except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew that it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is,` and like the way that it is going."
-- Brian Eno

I think what Eno is trying to get across here is that corporate music America got too fat and greedy, and pushed true art aside for the next big thing that would sell more copies rather than be an important and brave musical adventure. Oh, sure, Ticketmaster and Live Nation just completed a big merger this week (President Obama? Antitrust? Anyone?), but the major labels are in their death-rattle stage.

It is an exciting time for forward-thinking people to launch something new and righteous for their artists and highly accessible for the listeners. Good art will again prevail, because live shows will be what generate the income. Good art attracts large crowds. Large crowds buy more shirts. A band or artist can print their own shirts. Good art can be made available through online digital portals on the artist's terms. Vinyl is becoming very popular again. Good art can indeed support itself and flourish financially. That is good business. Fuck the major labels. Go support live music TODAY!

Football: Yes, I am a huge Seahawks fan, and knew in Week 4 or so that we didn't stand a chance in hell this season. It is at this point in a season that I try to find another team to sort of secretly pull for, a team that may have a chance of going to the playoffs and whose story I like.

This season, my auxiliary team was the Minnesota Vikings. I've liked Steve Hutchinson since he was here in Seattle, and, to be honest, me and every other 40-something male in America pulled for Brett Favre this year. We rooted for Favre because he is the last hope for guys like me. There is still a glimmer of hope that yes, I, Duff McKagan, could "suit up" for the NFL and hear the crowd absolutely roar as I cross the goal line after receiving an 80-yard slant-pass from some QB half my age, winning the Super Bowl for my beloved Seattle Seahawks and the 12th Man!

I cringed last Sunday as Favre took repeated punishment and the Vikings' hopes slipped out of Adrian Peterson's slippery hands. The Saints have a great story too this year, and so I suppose I will pull for them in the Super Bowl . . . I just hope that Favre comes back for another year. I don't want my football-watching couch to be a vantage point for watching dudes in their 20s next year. Unless of course it is watching all the genius draft picks that Pete Carroll gets, taking us all the way to the Super Bowl (or at least a winning season?). Until then, let's go, Mariners!

Side note: Before I get a whole rash of "old age" comments from you readers, the 40s ARE the new 20s, so suck it.

Obama: Well, here we go. According to almost every news channel and poll out there, America is getting somewhat disheartened with our Prez. I suppose I see some of the logic here. President Obama hasn't really taken a hard stance on ANYTHING to this point in office, and we were all expecting some sort of hard line on, at least, health-care reform or ?ber-transparency with the stimulus package. No. The Health Care Reform bill has been nothing but watered down since its first appearance last August (kowtowing to the Republicans when the Democrats had the majority vote all along. I still don't get that move. Too late now, though--Republican Scott Brown, of course, just won to fill the slot left vacant by Senator Ted Kennedy). A Republican winning a Senate seat in old-school Democratland Massachusetts does not bode well for Obama's party and popularity.

President Obama has shown this week that finance guru Tim Geithner may be falling out of his good graces. I am not sure who is to blame for the blunder, reported this week, about the "stimulus signs" that are appearing on our nation's highways. Apparently, with the money used to make these signs that PROMOTE the stimulus money creating jobs, we could have created hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands, of jobs actually FIXING the roadways. I hate this crap.

Hey, I haven't forgotten all the praise I have written here about Obama, and I still back him 100 percent. Our Republican right just seems a little dangerous and creepy right now. Maybe fellow Reverb columnist Krist Novoselic and I should run for office in 2012? We'd be kick-ass, and we could rock, too. I think this country needs tax incentives for business and lower taxes for citizens AND sweeping social programs. Let me work on that.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/01/the_future_hawks_rock_and_a_mc.php

Duff McKagan: Underground Is the New Mainstream

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKaganThursday, Feb. 4 2010

Somebody asked me last week if I could open up for discussion the difference between "mainstream" success for a band or artist, and "underground" success. So here goes:
Back when I was a lad and punk rock was all the rage, the movement itself was self-supporting and eventually made its way to college FM radio, which was then a new and burgeoning way of spreading musical ideas.

In the early '80s, bands like R.E.M. and U2 were gaining speed on college radio as underground successes. They were selling records for their indie labels, and selling out shows on college campuses around the world. Of course, when you put the word "success" or "sales" up against a marketplace, nothing can really sustain its core underground-ness.

Major labels tried to capitalize on the success of the underground dollar by creating imprint indie labels. That is to say, the same major-label muscle with a new street cred name (GN'R's label, Geffen, created DGC sometime in 1986 or '87 just for this purpose. The Muffs or the Waterboys on Geffen Records would seem like a sellout to their fan base, but DGC? Well, that was fine!).

Mainstream success is basically the same deal. Artists and bands sometimes, and more commonly, want to be a mainstream success. This is where the possibility of the major dough can roll in, especially if one is unabashed by what commerce looks like to their public. Someone like Beyonce actually uses her fan base to sell perfume, clothes, makeup, and anything else. It's not a bad thing, either. She doesn't let her music suffer as a result, and can get away with it (a female audience like hers LIKES all these extras). Jay-Z, on the other hand, while achieving mainstream superstardom, stays far away from being perceived as selling out. Jay-Z WAS once a fairly underground rapper from Brooklyn. It seems that he wants at least a part of his art to still be perceived as underground and edgy.

Silversun Pickups and MGMT have an image of being underground, but both are on major labels, sell tons of records, and were up for major Grammy categories. "Alternative music" used to actually mean something. College radio WAS the alternative to, well, everything else. "Alternative" is now just another selling-tool catchphrase (kind of like "change" in politics!).

I still think that there are stalwarts in our industry who blend a good bit of mainstream and independence. Foo Fighters kind of do what they want, right? Nine Inch Nails for sure do. Alice in Chains paid for this latest record themselves, and licensed it out to a major label, enjoying the marketing that only a major label can afford.

Underground success, though, will soon be redefined, and, I am sure, become more of an indicator of overall success. Major labels are dying because of their shortsightedness, brought on when they introduced a digital format just to sell the catalogs of certain acts all over again. Little did they know in 1989 that every home would have a computer some five short years later. When Napster tried to make a deal with the majors on revenue-sharing through advertising on that site at the time (hundreds of millions of dollars in 1997), the majors buried their head in the sand and continued their lawsuit with Napster. Napster lost, and the floodgates of free content to everyone have never stopped, and never will. Artists are the smartest people when their backs are against a wall. Free music will serve as the new loss leader to bands trying to attract a larger audience.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/02/duff_mckagan_underground_is_th.php

Quote from: Fingers on February 11, 2010, 09:00:58 PM

I'm a terrible computer person and wont know how to do it-Duff has a moving story about the Nirvana 1992 MTV awards story if anyone can post it-in his most recent column

ah, it's really simple man, just copy and paste!

All Apologies
By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan Thursday, Feb. 11 2010 @ 9:07AM

I was in a recording studio the other day and had some time to kill. If I am not reading a book or writing, I will often scavenge around for a newspaper or magazine. On this day, I came across Cobain, a tribute put out by Rolling Stone some months after Kurt's death in 1994.

I can't really pinpoint the reasons, but suddenly there in that dingy studio, I was enthralled and emotional. I read this book from beginning to end, and while of course I remember this time well, I don't think the scope of the sadness came to me until this moment. A profound sadness that stirred up a lot of emotion that maybe I haven't dealt with yet. I don't know, to be honest.

I was on the same plane as Kurt on that flight up from Los Angeles a couple of days before his death. We were both fucked-up. We talked, but not in depth. I was in my hell, and he in his, and this we both seemed to understand.

When we arrived in Seattle and went to baggage claim, the thought crossed my mind to invite him over to my house then and there. I had a real sense that he was lonely and alone that night. I felt the same way. There was a mad rush of people there in public. I was in a big rock band, and he was in a big rock band. We were standing next to each other. Lots of people stopped to gawk. I lost my train of thought for a minute, and Kurt said good-bye and left to his waiting town car. His new house was right down the street from my new house. I received a call from my manager two days later that Kurt had died.

I suppose I was numb to this sort of thing at this point in my life. I had lost two of my best friends to drug overdoses. People in my own band had overdosed multiple times. My life and addiction were spinning out of control, and my body was failing in so many different ways. It is possible that I was incapable of feeling sadness, incapable of picking up the phone and calling Krist or Dave. In truth, I had such low self-esteem at that point, that I am sure I felt my call would have no impact on these fine men.

I had been really excited back in 1991 or so, when bands from my hometown of Seattle started to rise up and get recognized for magnificent music. I was proud because I knew the scene there was truly unique and self-supporting and open to new and different ideas.

A few years later, at the MTV Awards where my band and Nirvana both performed, I blew my lid when I perceived a slander toward my band from the Nirvana camp. In my drunken haze and drug-induced mania, I heard what I wanted to hear, and I went after Krist Novoselic backstage. I had no control of myself then. And Krist, I am sorry for that day.

Krist, my colleague and friend, I am so sorry for your loss, too. I am sorry I could not be your friend back then. We had so, so many things in common. We have so many things in common today.

I am sorry that I didn't have the faculties to just come up and talk to you at the MTV Awards in 1992. I was mad and insane then. My scope of dealing with any sort of conflict had narrowed down to barroom brawling. Kim "Fastback" Warnick, my mentor, called me the day after my embarrassment and scolded me for it. I felt so low. I simply did not know how to call you and apologize then. My dream of being in a band that everyone in the world believed in had come to life. The complications that came with that dream were also making themselves present. You were dealing with the same things I was. We could have had a lot to talk about together.

I am glad that you have overcome that mad season in your life. It takes a strong man to have that sort of devastation not permanently handicap you. Your band should have been one of those that kept setting new benchmarks for what a rock band is. Your career and vision was cut short. We musicians just don't talk about this kind of stuff, thinking maybe it's a little too touchy-feely. We are expected to just get over it. Why, don't we have piles of money to make ourselves feel better with? If only people knew.

I am not trying to embarrass you, Krist. Maybe I am only trying just now to come to grips and exorcise some of my own hidden monsters. I am glad that we are now friends and I hope that this part of the story will last a lifetime.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/02/all_apologies.php#more

^^ Krist Novoselic's response to Duff:

Krist Novoselic: Kurt Cobain, Alexander McQueen, and Making Sense of It All

Friday, Feb. 12 2010

Dear Duff,

No worries on the MTV music awards. There were all kinds of shenanigans going on. And I've been drunk and irresponsible myself too many times. That self-destructiveness can lurk in the shadows - lubricated by one substance or another.

I read your column and it brought up a lot of feelings for me and if we do look back, let's not forget the positive. I remember the time later in the 1990's when we crossed paths again at the Showbox. I said it was good to see you, and it was.

Moments after I read your column about Kurt, I read the news about Alexander McQueen and his shocking suicide. On top of that, there was another news report that the authorities found out who stole the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from the Auschwitz death camp. I stepped out to get some air and all this came together.

Kurt Cobain and Alexander McQueen were talented and successful individuals. They owned the world. But they obviously didn't see any value in what they had. There was something inside where things seemed futile.

Now imagine the life of those who suffered in the death camps? They were imprisoned starved, tortured, humiliated, raped - their loved ones died in front of their eyes! Yet people struggled to live. In fact, after the camps were liberated, many survivors went on to have productive lives and some are still living!

You can't be rational about suicide. It's hard to reconcile. When someone is murdered, you can get angry at the killer. This happens with suicide, but you're mad at both the victim and the perpetrator! It's the ultimate act of self-destruction.

Alexander McQueen was an excellent artist and craftsman who left us so much. His work promises to have a lasting influence on fashion in the 21st Century. In a way he lives.

They're putting the sign back on Auschwitz that we may never forget the suffering inflicted by an evil ideology - we also remember the triumph of so many individuals who pushed on in the face of the horrible atrocities of the camps. Again, when somebody take their own life, it's hard to make sense of things. It's a cruel paradox - that notorious sign that reads, "Work Sets You Free".

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/02/krist_novoselic_kurt_cobain_al.php

Adventures in Capitalism and Greed

By Duff McKagan

Feb. 18 2010

"The whole labor of the world lies at their mercy--and like fierce wolves they rend and destroy, like ravening vultures they devour and tear! The whole power of mankind belongs to them, forever and beyond recall--do what it can and strive as it will, humanity lives for them and dies for them. They own not only the labor of society, they have bought the governments, and everywhere they use their raped and stolen power to entrench themselves in their privileges, to dig wider and deeper the channels through which the river of profits flows to them." --The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

Last weekend, for the first time, I finally watched Michael Moore's latest film Capitalism: A Love Story. Now to be fair, I watched this film on a plane that started its descent just as the film was getting to the poignant end--when we the people had finally spoken and elected Obama, therefore finally clamping down on the banking industry and all its villains and bad guys. Chuckle.

I'm sorry I'm so skeptical. It's just that in my view, and from what I've discovered avidly reading financial papers and textbooks, political office, lobbyists, Wall Street, and the banking industry are so interwoven and above reproach that unless Obama throws out Geithner and stages some sort of grand socialist /co-op work program on a national scale, we are just doomed to repeat the mistakes that led to our current crises. That is, if and when we get out of our current mess.

I read somewhere that as of late, banks were being called "casinos" because of the way they are gambling with people's money, but that would be unfair to casinos. Las Vegas must at least (by law) keep a specified amount IN RESERVE to cover their ass. The banking industry does not have the same regulation . . . you read me right.

Obama is not a dumb guy, and I hope he is right now studying flubs from the past to hopefully learn a thing or two about getting us all out of this crisis with the least amount of pain. I hope.

What has been happening to the global financial markets over the last 30 years or so is an almost conceited blindness to the failures of the past because of boom-time lust. What has happened recently in this credit crisis is not a product of failure. It is a product of success.

I believe Winston Churchill stated back in the late '40s that "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." When General Eisenhower became president after the war, he instated a 90 percent tax against the richest of the rich here in the U.S.A. It paid for the war and built our interstate highway system, dams, and other massive infrastructure. In the 1950s, America was never so prosperous. Eisenhower was never questioned, because by God he won the fucking war! A 90 percent tax sounds a lot like what they do in Sweden and other "soft" socialist countries. [SO, IS THIS SOMETHING YOU'RE SUGGESTING WE SHOULD DO?]

Michael Moore points to a pretty poignant grand overview with his movie, though: The capitalist propaganda machine was cranked into high gear, selling it as being as American as apple pie. Maybe Obama can start cranking out propaganda that exhorts social programs and shared revenue. Are we ready to listen?

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/02/adventures_in_capitalism_and_g.php

How a Recovering Addict Deals With Girl Scout Cookie Season

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Feb. 25 2010

Most of you must know at this point that I have two daughters, 9 and 12. My 9-year-old has been a Brownie and a Girl Scout for the past three years. It's a really sweet endeavor that gives her some life tools that as a father I wouldn't even know how to begin to approach. It is ALL good.

Ah, but once a year, it becomes time for the Girl Scout Cookie campaign, and my darling little girl has become a crack sales-person, especially when it comes to me and all my guy friends who come over for Sunday football. Little girls just have a way of making grown men melt and do whatever the pigtailed princess wants. My daughter does very well in her fundraising campaign as a result.

For me, I always end up buying around 10 boxes of each flavor, and these days I think there are nine different flavors. Let me back up a little bit and inform you about my strict diet program that started about a week after I got sober in 1994. A diet that helped clean out my system and that I have stayed on because, well, I've just GOT to hang on to my girlish figure, don't I?

In my drinking and drug-using days, health and nutrition were completely foreign topics to me, and I was lucky if I ate a hot dog or Fritos once every two or three days. My view from that deep, addicted hole did not allow for much thought on cholesterol levels or bad carbs vs. good carbs. Clean food and vitamins were for those who planned to live past age 30, and there was no way, I thought, that I would be in that category.

Yeah. But I got my wake-up call in 1994, and suddenly I realized that maybe I was going to be one of those few guys who were going to live (the list of those like me was becoming too rarefied at that juncture). I've written here before about bits and pieces of my recovery, but a huge part of it was my diet. After putting so many harmful things into my body for so long, I needed to purge my system and begin to learn the process of nutrition and fueling my blood, organs, and muscle tissue to help me regain my health and reverse some of the damage done. I was also about 50 pounds heavier that I am now, and the weight I was carrying was NOT muscle. All the sugar from the tons of alcohol had left me with a spare tire of fat and bloat. NOT sexy.

A friend of mine turned me on to a diet that was being used for people with cancer and other diseases, who were showing a marked improvement by adhering to it. It consisted of watery fruits in the morning, greens with fish for lunch (no snacking!), greens with fish or free-range chicken for early dinner (no late-night food!), and LOTS of exercise!

This taught me how to eat three meals a day, and it really started to make me feel better. I could actually feel the nutrients as they entered my blood system. With the exercise and no carbs, my weight just started to drop off, and I could see muscle tone returning. This was all a huge victory for me, and I started to feel GREAT all the time.

Flash forward a few years, and my wife and I have small kids at home. New foods start to pile up in our pantry. Potato chips. Cookies. Ice cream in the freezer, chocolate around Halloween and Christmas. When you quit alcohol, there is still a huge craving for all the sugar you've just cut out, and for me it's a constant battle. Plenty of times I have downed a whole family-sized Hershey's chocolate bar with almonds in less than 10 minutes, much as I used to down a gallon of vodka. I always feel like absolute shit after these episodes, so I really make an effort to just not have chocolate or cookies in the house. If my wife or kids have the stuff, I literally ask them to hide it from me and not even let me know about it at all. Oh, but I just ordered 90 boxes of Thin Mints and chocolate macaroon cookies from my sweet little daughter, didn't I? They arrived two days ago. Fuuuuuuck!

That first night, I ate two whole boxes. I felt like that guy with melted chocolate all over his face and hands, crying uncontrollably, watching a sappy soap while listening to Celine Dion. Yesterday, I gave the cookies away, sheepishly, to some friends. The things a father will do. The things my head will do to me in the throes of chocolate mania.

P.S. My daughter got her Girl Scout badge to go along with my badge of shame that must have been outwardly visible to those friends I gave the cookies to.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/02/how_a_recovering_addict_deals.php

Coming Full Circle in My Extra Innings

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Mar. 4 2010

Last Sunday, I was more than honored to be asked to take part in a show here in Seattle that benefited Haiti relief efforts--honored because of the sheer talent of the other performers that I would be playing a bunch of different songs with.

Where do I start? When Debra Heesh, Jeff Rouse, Mike, and his wife Ashley McCready first came up with the idea of doing a Hootenanny for Haiti, it was going to be loosely based on some acoustic jams that some of us had done together over the last year or so. On top of this, Deb organized a Patsy Cline tribute show at Columbia City Theater last year and enrolled the help of Kim Virant, Star Anna, and Kristen Ward to be Patsy for the occasion. Gary Westlake, brothers Rick and Chris Friel, Ty Bailey (my daughters' piano teacher!!), and Jeff Rouse were the band that night.

I have for the most part been out of town except for two of the hootenanny rehearsals, but I was kept in the loop as the talent pool started to grow outward from this core group. Matt Cameron came in for the cause. Star Anna's band from Ellensburg, too. Stone Gossard and then his old band Brad (Shawn Smith is the most mysterious and powerful male singer out of Seattle . . . period). Tim DeJulio, a local ringer guitar player, came in too. And last but certainly not least, Kim Warnick came out of retirement to sing Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" and fucking killed it!

My new good buddy Mark Pickerel really surprised me with how good a singer he is. I hope people in Seattle realize just how blessed we are with the talent of the musician pool here . . . and the ease of these musicians playing together and appreciating each other. This just does not happen anywhere else.

I had never in all these years played with Matt Cameron or Stone or Shawn Smith. We have all been friends over the years, but more so because we have kids and we do the odd kid birthday together. I told Matt before the show that if I had any regrets at all in my life, it was that I was not more "present" when GN'R toured with Soundgarden back in the early '90s. I was just too fucked up. He told me a great story about when GN'R came to Seattle in 1985 to open for the Fastbacks at the Gorilla Gardens and afterward showed up at the Central Tavern where Soundgarden was playing one of their first-ever shows. Apparently we bum-rushed the stage and asked if we could play on their gear. They wisely said no. I vaguely remember this . . . but only vaguely.

Star Anna is someone who I've heard a lot, about but didn't have the chance to see until our rehearsal the night before the show. She is the real deal. There is a pain in her voice that comes from somewhere deep, a place I dare not ask where it comes from. She will be a talent that we can all say that "We saw her when . . . ". Guaranteed.

Two of my highlights were being able to play Mad Season's "River of Deceit" and Mother Love Bone's "Crown of Thorns." I was absolutely proud to be onstage with Matt, Mike, Stone, and Sean for these. I felt like maybe my life and musical career had come full circle and finally rested somewhere back home, here in Seattle, a place that I love.

I was talking to Mike the other morning and we were reminiscing a bit. We have known each other since we were in our teens. I was playing the "what if" game. What if I had stayed in Seattle during the '80s? Would I have been in Soundgarden, or maybe Mother Love Bone? Maybe. We decided to rest easy in the fact that we all took our own and distinct paths and had somehow come out OK and somewhat successful. For guys like Mike and I, to be here and vertical and breathing at all is a bonus. Some might say a miracle. These extra innings that I call my existence right now are fucking beautiful.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/03/coming_full_circle_in_my_extra.php

For Guns N' Roses, London Called Early

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Mar. 11 2010

I am in London this week looking at a bunch of unsigned bands for a new venture that I am part of. It is fresh and fun to see some of these bands: startled kids with huge and hopeful eyes that see a world that is theirs for the taking, energetic, unjaded, and full of piss and vinegar. I need to see this now and again to remind me what music should be all about. It also reminds me of the first time I came over here: It was with GN'R in July of '87, a few weeks before Appetite for Destruction came out.

The year before, we had put out the Live Like a Suicide EP. This fast and furious collection of songs sort of just died everywhere else in the world except for the UK. Unbeknownst to us, a cult following of fans was building over here who were chomping at the bit for any news on the band. When Kerrang magazine sent a photographer to Los Angeles to shoot us for the cover, we couldn't actually believe it. We had received press coverage in L.A. at this point, but KERRANG?! Are you kidding me?

After we finished Appetite and were waiting for its release and tour opportunities, we were approached to go to London and play the famous Marquee club. The only place I had been outside the U.S. was Vancouver, B.C., to play punk-rock shows with my various Seattle bands when I was a teenager. This was BIG! Huge! Magnificent!

I think it's assumed these days that GN'R kind of "broke" straight from the get-go after the release of AFD. Truth is, it took us nearly a year of straight touring before anyone paid attention to us in a significant manner--except for the UK.

An odd clash of circumstances occurred in Britain about a year before Live Like a Suicide came out. Back then and before the Internet, the youth over here would sort of latch on to one rock-and-roll band and identify it as their clarion light. That band was Hanoi Rocks, an amazing group of Finns who had relocated to England and were writing some of the best and dirtiest rock songs. When Hanoi finally came to tour America for the first time in 1985, their drummer Razzle died in a car crash while making a booze run with Vince Neil in L.A. I had just moved to Hollywood, and Slash and I had tickets to that Hanoi gig that never happened. It was an incredibly sad moment not only in rock and roll, but all the way around. Hanoi Rocks never quite recovered.

Flash forward to our gig in the UK, July 1987. After the first Marquee gig sold out in record time, they added a second date. That sold out just as fast, so they added a third. By the time we arrived here (we stayed at a rent-by-the-week apartment because it was much cheaper than a hotel), we were kind of like little mini-celebrities. There were times that people would stop us on the street and they actually knew who we were! It was quite weird, even on a small scale.

I learned to ride the tube [subway] everywhere, and it just seemed that there were great gigs every night we were there. Slash and I went out to a suburb one night to see the Replacements, and got so drunk that we lost track where we were. We caught a tube to somewhere that was not anywhere even close to our apartment in Kensington. We got into a drunken fight when we got to the end of the line, and realized that there were no more trains running and that we didn't have anything close to the amount of money to take a cab. Come to think of it, I doubt we even knew the address of where we were staying; we only knew how to get there from our local tube stop. To this day, I am not sure how we ever got back that night. Did we sleep in the train station? Ah, the luck and providence shown to the young and drunken and foolish!

But the real reason we were here, of course, was to fucking rock. I must say that back in that period of the band's career, nobody did it with more purpose, sneer, and reckless bad intent than us. This is not me bragging--it's just that we were hitting on all the right cylinders at the same time. When we walked to the Marquee on that first night, we were met by the crowd that was in line surrounding the block. We were absolutely fucking amazed that all these people came to see us. We hung out there in the street with them before and after those three gigs. We found that we had suddenly become "that" band that the youth of England had been looking for to fill the void left after Hanoi Rocks' tragic demise. Within four years, we would be headlining in stadiums here.

I am here now as a real grown-up, an adult doing very "adult-like" business and meeting with real-life businessmen. I am glad to be taken seriously in these meetings, and for certain feel that I have earned the right to be doing the things that I do outside of just playing music. Coming back to London, though, always puts a smile on my face. That first 10-day stay here as a young man will forever be a brilliant memory that will always keep me from becoming jaded.

Quote from: FunkyMonkey on March 11, 2010, 08:42:11 PM

Good for him. Seriously, sometimes past condemn you, do not forget that today is a "serious" businessman but in the past he was seen all over the world drunk, rocking in a rock n' roll band. It wouldn't be that easy to put aside all these kind of things and change the image that people have of you.

Always liked Duff. Nice guy. Good for him.

Happy Fishing, Slats, My Old Friend

By Duff McKagan, Friday, Mar. 19 2010

Slats and I did not have a boat. But he had a car.

On the southern border of the University of Washington campus lies its school of aquatic and fishery sciences and its salmon hatchery. Slats thought it a brilliant idea for us to hop the fence there with a bucket and simply scoop up salmon at will so we could clean 'em, freeze 'em, and eat salmon for weeks. Everything worked according to plan, and we had a bunch of flopping salmon in a big bucket when the floodlights went on and the night watchman came chasing after us.

I told Slats to just drop the bucket, but he was having none of it. He somehow scaled the fence with that damn thing. One of the funniest memories I will ever have is of him driving the car back to my apartment with his left hand and punching those flopping salmon in that bucket with his right. He had a running commentary with those fish all the way home, saying they almost got us into big trouble and now they would pay the ultimate price.

I have written before that I have borne witness too many times to the hopeful glint in a person's eye being whisked away by agents of vice. My time as a teenage musician in Seattle seemed to coincide exactly with an influx of wave upon wave of heroin to this port city.

The person who personifies this best to me is a young man, back in the '80s, with a hopeful glint and so much more. He was probably the funniest and most charming guy I'd ever met. Chris Harvey (aka Slats) died last Saturday of complications due to a broken hip. Unfortunately, drugs had claimed him long before, and held him. This is not meant to be a crude or heartless comment directed at a man who is no longer here to defend himself. I loved that guy like a brother once upon a time, back when the playing field of youth was even and green and soft and we were just opening our eyes to what was possible and available in life.

He was a guy who all the rest of us guys wanted to be like. He had the good looks and charm that all the girls fawned over. He never gloated or preened in his status as the coolest guy in the room, and that very thing made him seem even cooler.

I'm not sure how or when I initially met Slats, but it must have been some time in 1980, when we were both either in bands or trying to start one. After we met, though, we became fast and all-of-the-time friends. We started our first band, the Zipdads, together with Andy Freeze from the Vains and Scott Dittman from the Cheaters.

The Zipdads was really more a lifestyle than a musical statement. Sure, we played a bunch of shows here in Seattle and up in Vancouver, B.C., but it was the fun we had together that really set us apart and what other people and bands wanted to be a part of. Slats was always the instigator at the center of that fun.

His mom, too, was so supportive of her son, and would have us over for dinner at their place in Montlake. We would pick up his Gibson SG and Fender amp, and he would always speak highly of his mom even after we left the house. Most teenage boys would find SOMETHING to gripe on their parents about--but not Slats. I always admired that.

He always had the smoothest of smooth one-liners for girls wherever we went. I had no idea where he got his vast repertoire--maybe he just made that shit up on the spot--but girls fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Slats never was one of the most skilled guitar players, but he somehow crafted his own sound back in our day. When he formed the Silly Killers in 1982, his sound and sense of songwriting were really starting to take shape. Their 7" single, "Knife Manual," is a classic. I don't think it was too much longer before he started to dabble with heroin. He never found his musical form again, and that is sad.

I had seen him around at Loaded shows and elsewhere over the past 10 years, but always tried to avoid him because our paths had grown too far apart and I was frankly dubious and protective of my life, not being a good friend. To be honest, I don't know what we would then have had to talk about. But I could have tried. I should have tried.

I'm so sorry, Mrs. Harvey, from all of us, for the loss of your precious son.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/03/happy_fishing_slats_my_old_fri.php

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/03/yes_i_got_a_book_deal.php

Duff McKagan
And, Yes, I Got a Book DealBy Duff McKagan, Thursday, Mar. 25 2010

Duff McKagan's column runs every Thursday on Reverb. He writes about what music is circulating through his space every Monday.
I am not sure if any of you have heard the rumors about me getting a book deal. I just wanted to announce here first that it is in fact true. The reason for any announcement at all is twofold, actually:

1. Most important, I want to thank the readers of my column for really pushing me to write this book. Those constant suggestions and prodding really made me take a look at what I was saying, and indeed at how I was writing it. The Weekly staff have also been invaluable to me--certain editors here have made a big difference as far as what they expect from me. That too makes for a better product.

2. I want to also make clear that this book is not a GN'R "tell-all" or some other such "rock" book. There are a lot of those at this point. Sure, I will touch on all of that, as it is part of my story, but only just a part of it. Rather, it will be a story of an ordinary guy who met with extraordinary circumstances, and the circumnavigation through these situations. If you have been a reader of my column, then you get the general idea of my headspace. I WILL be writing this myself, thick or thin.

Touchstone, a division of Simon and Schuster, will publish my book in Fall 2011. Stacy Creamer, Touchstone VP and Publisher, will be my editor. I am excited that Tim Mohr, my old editor at Playboy, will be joining me too on this challenging venture and chapter of my life. Tim has edited the likes of Hunter S. Thompson. I look forward to him throwing out thousands of my words and telling me that I am full of shit on a daily basis!

A Dork Among Hipsters

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Apr. 1 2010

This week I am down in L.A. My wife and kids are away for the first part of spring break while I had to stay back and put in some work. But this is all OK. Sometimes it is cool to be a lone wolf and a solo-riding bad-ass. The "hunter/gatherer" in us men at times needs to range free and howl at the moon. In my case, this is true--as long as I am home by 11:30 so I can call my wife before she goes to bed. And yes, uh . . . well, my dogs get lonely when I am gone too long . . .

I am not a guy who goes out a whole lot these days. When I am out on tour, I am basically at a gig every night. The last thing I want to do for the first couple of months after getting home is go out to another gig or show. Does that make sense?

By chance, though, two of my good friends were playing shows down here this week AND another friend was having a big birthday sort of bash. That meant I was going to go out three whole nights in a row. I didn't have to get up at 7 a.m. with my daughters, so what the hell?! I was IN!

I love to see good live music, and do what I can to support local and new bands. There were and are those who did and still do the same for me in my career, and I will never forget that. Some of you even read this column on a regular basis.

Some of you may know of Ryan "Go Time" Moore, Loaded's all-of-the-time drum tech and shot-caller (check out Go Time TV on YouTube to get a better sense of the genius that is Go Time). Ryan is a Portland dude, and has most recently been playing with the psychedelic, New Orleans-influenced MarchFourth Marching Band. They are on tour right now and played this past Sunday at a club, so I headed down. Sometimes when you go to see a friend's band, it can get a little uncomfortable if it maybe sucks or is otherwise not to your particular taste. I was, however (thankfully), completely blown away by this show. If anyone has a chance, definitely go see them in Seattle April 9 at Honk Fest West in Georgetown.

The following night, Monday, I went to see former Loudermilk and current Loaded drummer Isaac Carpenter's new band Sea Spin at the Silver Lake Lounge. For those of you who don't know, the Silver Lake section of L.A. is home to only the hippest and coolest of the cool. It seems that there is a conscious effort in that part of town to perhaps even shun a "rock" guy like myself. No worries--I had Go Time in tow, and we polished the tops of our shoes to get a better view of our eventual focus for later that night (get it? shoe-gaze?). Again, I was really quite pleasantly surprised. Sea Spin reminds me of early My Bloody Valentine with a somewhat current twist. Really good! As I left that night, I really felt like a cool and relevant hipster with his finger on the pulse of all that was Silver Lake. I even got a "dude nod" from some of the guys hanging out on the sidewalk as I walked out. I am fucking cool!!

Tuesday night I was invited to a friend's birthday party at the ultra-chic Les Deux in Hollywood. I was too afraid of blowing my cover to ask for the address, though. You're just sort of supposed to know where this place is. If you don't? Then don't even bother. But there I was, the guy calling 411 and asking for an address. I had to try about four different spellings before I got it right.

As I walked up to the doorman, my phone rang. It was my wife asking if I'd fed the dogs and if I was wearing a coat and if I was taking my vitamins and drinking enough water. She loves me. I had to, however, tell her that I had to get off the phone because I didn't want to look like THAT guy--you know the one, the douchebag on his phone going to the door of the cool club. I told her I loved her--in a hushed tone, of course. Yes, you ARE my monkey! Yes, dear, the girls ARE our monkey babies. Yes, babe, the dogs are our monkey grandchildren. "Yes, OK . . . I love you too!" It was time to go be a bad-ass in the mean streets of Hollywood. A master of all he surveys. A man among men. Actually, a dork among the hipsters. But that is indeed OK. My dogs are none the wiser.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/04/a_dork_among_hipsters_1.php

The Soul of a Man

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Apr. 15 2010

My wife and I watched a pay-per-view showing of the Robert De Niro movie Everybody's Fine the other night. It's a bittersweet portrayal of an aging widower's somewhat broken and fractured relationship with his four grown children. If you have a living father whom you maybe haven't called for a while, this movie would probably do the trick in prompting one to do it now, sooner rather than later.

I saw a feature on Headline News this morning about how the art of "manliness" is perhaps making somewhat of a comeback. Apparently the metrosexual phase in our society has given women a lower outlook on us men. They are thinking we are all just a bunch of wimps, fellas.

My relationship with my father was strained when Pop left us when I was about 7 or so. I was the last of eight kids, and the way I figured things as a boy was that I must have had something to do with it. That is what we do when we aren't old enough to see the bigger picture. The truth of the matter was that my parents' relationship was probably strained for years, and the perfect and idealistic stage in their marriage had probably ended sometime back in the 1940s. I didn't speak with my dad again, really, until I was about 14. Our relationship was on-again/off-again until my wife Susan and I started to have kids of our own. Susan pushed me to start calling my dad then, and I am glad of it. He died a couple of years back, and at least we had made our peace for the last few years of his life and had some good times and many laughs. He was a great grandpa to our girls.

I have the honorable duty now of being a strong male figure to my own daughters. In this life, we don't get to pick and choose what we are going to be like. As a dad, what I thought would be innate and common-sense stuff raising girls has turned into a daily learning process where I really have no idea what is in store for me next. I must be a "man's man" at times; at other moments, I must be sensitive and soft. I think that is the true essence of what being a man is. Well, at least that is what I have learned thus far.

I don't have this shit figured out at all yet, really. In my teens and 20s, I surmised that masculinity was gauged by how tough you were in a threatening situation. As I got deeper and deeper into martial arts in my 30s, I came to understand that a tough "front" was nothing more than fear masked by bravado. As guys, we are not really given the tools to deal with all this stuff. We just trudge through this life, and are lucky when some enlightenment comes our way.

My biggest challenge, and another massive feature that I see as part of true manliness, is being honest with myself and others and being forthright and true in my actions and dealings with my family, friends, and business associates. This is a huge deal. Do as you say. Say what you mean. Walk it like you talk it.

Do Robert Mitchum and Clint Eastwood toe as straight a line in real life as they do in their portrayals of the macho and rock-hard figures in their movies? Probably not. I am finding out just now in my 40s that the true measure of being a man is being a caring husband and father to girls, an ass-kicking rock guy, a scholarly reader, a fucking dork in the hipster club, and a top-notch crossworder.

But I still have to wait 'til after dark to walk our little pug dog.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/04/the_soul_of_a_man.php

If Only Rockwell Were Here to Paint This

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Apr. 22 2010

As a father of girls, I really have no idea what I am doing most of the time. I suppose I have this idealized Norman Rockwell-like picture of how it should all look in my mind's-eye. Ah, but things seldom happen according to plan when you have kids. My hopes of my girls being diehard Mariners fans or back-country hiking enthusiasts have long passed. No, they do things when THEY are ready for them, and I am slowly getting that this is the way it is. But I get pleasantly surprised all the time these days.

As I write this, my dog Buckley is doing his usual daytime thing--sleeping. This little dude snores SO loudly that it often breaks my concentration. Our house down here in L.A. is an old Spanish-style adobe home with 14-inch thick brick walls. As a result, the wi-fi for our laptops has a limited range, and we all have to sit in one particular room if we want to get online.

Yesterday, I had a very important Skype business conference call with some serious lawyers and financial types in London. I set myself up in our computer room for the pre-specified time for the call. My dog Buckley likes to be where I am, all the time. As my call progressed and the conversation got more detailed and serious, Buckley started to snore louder and louder. I think the sound of my voice makes him feel secure and comfortable. I try to turn him and whatnot to keep him from snoring too loudly, but it seems this only makes him sleep more soundly. At some point in my call, one of my UK colleagues stopped the conversation and asked what all the noise was. "It sounds like there is a big dog snoring." Uh, yeah, sorry. That is MY dog. He is not big at all. He is one foot long . . . but he has the "snore" of a Labrador. I had to excuse myself and pick this dog up and take him to my bedroom so that I could carry on my call unmolested.

So, back to my children and the point of things coming at me at unexpected times. My wife and I took the girls to see Taylor Swift last Friday. Before any of you chastise me for my taste in music or whatever, let me just tell you that I actually completely back my girls being into Taylor Swift. Raising kids in a semi-safe environment can be hard enough in itself--if my kids are into an artist with a sweet and innocent message, well, more power to it.

I have tried to teach my daughters the guitar over the years. It seems like the likely thing, right? I am a musician and my girls should take after their "old dad," right? Wrong! The reality is that they think I am kind of a dork, and that all the things I do are somewhat dorkish. Including playing in a rock band! OK, I get it. So my girls will never start a new Runaways or Girlschool. Fine. I let that dream fade a few years ago, and have accepted the fact that my girls have their own path. But wait . . .

The day after the Taylor Swift concert, my wife asked me if I could show her a few chords on the acoustic guitar. "Yeah. Sure." I muttered that I was a crappy teacher, but that I would do my best. To my surprise, my wife Susan locked right into it, and played the chords I showed her for the rest of the day.

The next morning, my daughter Grace asked me if I could show HER a few chords on the guitar, and if I could teach her a MGMT song. "Uh . . . SURE!" Grace and Susan ended up playing all that day. On both Monday and Tuesday, when Grace got home from school, she went straight to the guitar. Susan has stuck with it too. And last night, Mae, my youngest, came into the living room and asked if she too could learn a few chords . . . "I want to play with my sister," she said plainly. Really sweet stuff!

So there I was, sitting in our living room--where I have the Direct TV MLB package so that I can watch my Mariners when I am down here in L.A. The game is on. I am trying to watch what is happening because the M's are starting to get exciting. I have all three of my girls asking me guitar questions. They are all playing different chords at the same time. Buckley is snoring something fierce. Ken Griffey Jr. is at the plate, and we have a chance to go up by two in the eighth inning. Grace is asking me why I have "such an old guitar," and why don't I have something newer? (That acoustic is an old Sears-made "Buck Owens American" that I treasure and which is somewhat valuable.) I start to get flustered until I suddenly realize that, right here and right now, I have everything that I always wanted. A family that needs me. Kids who are excited about something I can actually help them with. Two dumb dogs who are finally semi-house trained . . . and my baseball team on the TV. If only Norman Rockwell were here to paint this scene right now . . .

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/04/if_only_rockwell_were_here_to.php

If Women Are From Mars, I Better Learn to Speak Martian
By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Apr. 29 2010 @ 1:23PM

Last Sunday, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a sort of men-only seminar, where the sole topic was . . . WOMEN! I know that readers here have borne witness to some of my many stumbles as the only male in a house full of girls. But seriously, I can use all the help I can get. This seminar was geared toward understanding the messages and perceptions that men are always trying to decipher from their female counterparts.

My sensei, Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, is a six-time world-champion kickboxer, and a legend in the martial-arts and boxing community around the globe. But it's what Benny has done out of the ring that has qualified him for this new role. Benny's been asked countless times to speak with women's groups--many times, groups for battered women. He is also the father of a girl, and has been married for 37 years. If you were to see Benny and his wife Sara in a grocery store or on the street somewhere, you would swear that they were a couple who had JUST fallen in love.

After years of learning from the women in classes and in his house, Benny decided he'd share a few of the lessons in the form of this seminar. Some of this may seem like low-hanging fruit, but seriously, every guy should have an afternoon dedicated to thinking seriously about this stuff. It will come in handy, and perhaps avoid a "misunderstanding" or two in the future.

At any rate, here are my thoughts on a few of the points Benny and the class went over:

No, We Can't Fix It

We fellas, in a general sense, have always been taught to show little or no emotion and fear. To add to this, our dads would often have us go fix something when we got into trouble. ("Go paint the fence!" or "Go wash the car!"). I have found myself all too often in a situation with my ladies where I want to "fix" a problem when perhaps all they really want from me is to listen. We fellas, though, will put in all the work to "fix" something, only to find our women even more upset. This leads to US getting mad because of the un-appreciated work we have just put in.

Yes, You're Pretty, But You're Also Smart

Too many girls, on the other hand--and this again a generalization--have been raised to sort of just shut up and look pretty; kind of seen but not heard. I'm not sure if this stuff stemmed from the Puritan backbone of this country, or if it goes back to caveman stuff, but by the time our ladies get up and out of their parents' house, they want to be heard. Understandable. This generalization is not meant from me to offend anyone reading this--this is just a basic and elementary overview for use in illustration here.

It's Not Supposed to Be Easy

By the time we heterosexual couples get together in our late teens or 20s, we have a LOT of cards stacked against us when it comes to communicating and understanding each other. Men want to feel appreciated and needed. Women want to feel safe and appreciated. But "safe" to a woman may not mean the same thing as it does to us dudes. Safe, for a woman, may simply mean having a man who will listen and not react when they need it. I don't know, really. Yet.

This first men's meeting with Benny and the brave gentlemen that showed up was an illuminating and useful first step for me. Indeed, men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but what are you gonna do about it now?

For me, I am going through a very interesting phase with my oldest daughter, who is right at 13 years of age. I've been warned about this stage--you know the one--where daughters start very suddenly to depart emotionally from their fathers. I know it is just a phase, but there is indeed a profound sense of loss for me right now. As a guy, I want to "fix" the situation, but that only makes my daughter think I'm even dorkier and invariably less cool than I was yesterday. I must figure out a way to be at peace with the situation for now. I know for a fact that she means no harm and that she loves me.

I hope that more men's groups like this one my Sensei started begin to grow and flourish. A world with men who are at least making an effort to understand themselves and their women can be nothing but better, if you ask me.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/04/if_women_are_from_mars_i_bette.php

Read It Or Repeat It

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, May. 6 2010

The more books about history I read, the more I see history repeating itself. I have been reading fiction as of late, but it's when I read good historical nonfiction that I get completely lost in the story. Fact is, to me, always much more engrossing than fiction. The truly bizarre and heinous just can't be made up:

--Big lessons, like how "inside" Wall Street is, and how greed has made the common investor just a pawn in the game--starting about 125 YEARS ago (yes, it's not just a recent phenomenon).

--War and the displacement of indigenous peoples too. Just 40 years ago in Vietnam, by moving whole villages out of their ancient homelands, the invading U.S. Army bumbled and stumbled and created an enemy out of the friendly and, before then, helpful South Vietnamese. Heck, go back even further, and you'll see that Ho Chi Minh modeled his Declaration of Independence after ours, and that the U.S. backed Vietnam's struggle for independence in the late 1940s. How did we create such an ardent enemy within the following 20 years or so?

I received an e-mail from my best friend Andy yesterday. He and I are big "war buffs," and we sometimes trade tips on what books to read. He is an armchair historian like me. Neither of us are, however, military geniuses--just common, regular guys who try to figure stuff out as we go. Andy's e-mail was rather poignant and to-the-point, though. It DOES have something to do with books and reading too, so it should bring me back to my reading list:

"I did read Three Cups of Tea; it explains a lot about the area of North Pakistan. I've been looking into that area for the last year or so. Pakistan and the Afghan area is a really fucked-up place. If we spent half the money we spend to bomb the shit out of them, we could "win." It's a lesson we learned in Vietnam, but it looks like they (our "leaders") forgot. It's like when we moved all of those little tribes in the way-out areas to new "camps." If we could have just helped them to live a better life somehow, they would not have worked with the VC; but instead, we moved them from a place that they had lived for thousands of years. If we could just get those Wahidis out of there (Pakistan and Afghanistan), and build new schools that somehow taught them not to hate us and make a better life, they would and could thrive."
I'm not trying to get political here at all. It's just that with all the reading I do--and reading from all different viewpoints (not just an "Anglo" one), I just start to bang my head against a wall sometimes!

--Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin): I think I was first attracted to this book because I had heard it was a story of a K2 mountain-climber who had gotten lost on the hike out of that area. While, yes, this is indeed how the story got its start, Three Cups is a heartwarming story of humanity, ancient tribal ways, fundamental-religious rule, and perseverance in the mountains above Pakistan and Afghanistan. If you haven't read this book yet, put it on top of your list.

--The Forever War (Dexter Filkins): Yes, I think I have written about this book here before, but it seems to become everyone's favorite read after I suggest it to them. Iraq and Afghanistan are two big cluster-fucks that have put so many people's lives on the line. We should all be as well-informed as we can, I think, and The Forever War gives a view with some scope and honesty.

--The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien): This is an epic and poetic first-hand account of the brutality and humanity of the Vietnam War. If you were to read this book before Three Cups and The Forever War, you would surely scratch your head and wonder if our Western leaders can add two and two.

--The Moneychangers (Upton Sinclair): I'm not sure what the difference is between Goldman Sachs selling financial vehicles that are built to fail, and Sinclair's 1910 "Northern Mississippi Railroad" stock being sold to a public who had no idea of the bad intentions of its chairmen. In The Jungle, Sinclair did much to change child-labor laws and food-inspection laws; I wonder why Wall Street wasn't put on a tighter leash after it was exposed by Moneychangers? This 100-year-old book is suddenly very topical and relevant.

Again, I know I have previously covered a few of these books, but there are new readers here all the time, and these reads are just too important and good. Anyone want to chime in?

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/05/read_it_or_repeat_it.php

Just Like You, I Put My Custom-Tailored Jeans On One Leg at a Time

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, May. 13 2010

If you've seen me at any rock shows over the past few years, you will notice that I wear the same jeans at every gig. As a matter of fact, I wear those pants everywhere: to the grocery store, on the plane, to the kids' school . . . and to weddings. I had them custom-made. Not because I'm the kind of guy who needs to be the only one on his block with his pair of jeans. For the life of me, I cannot find a pair of pants in the store that will fit. Trust me, I've tried.

I am somewhere in between average and big-and-tall, I suppose. Nothing at either store seems to fit. It makes me feel all alone sometimes when I go to a clothing store only to find nothing in my pant size. I mean, when was the last time you saw a pair of 32/36s hanging on the racks? This, my friends, is the problem with being tall.

I'm not sure what the average adult height is, but I am most positive that it is much shorter than my 6'3". Why am I so sure of this? Well, because for most of my life I have had to stoop to grab something off of a countertop, desktop, or grocery check-out counter. Things that are meant for an average height have been much too low for me for many years now. I must constantly strengthen my back and keep it limber.

Now I am not one to complain about my lot in life. I'm well aware that things could most certainly be a whole hell of a lot worse. I have all my arms and legs and fingers and toes. My intellect and sanity are mostly intact and in working order. I have two children, so obviously all that stuff works, too. No, I am not complaining. I just have a few items that I want to throw out there:

I'm not looking down on you, I swear. Eye contact is polite, and I am a firm believer in it. But over the years my neck has started to ache from looking down most of the time. My work predestines that I must stand most of the time and "rock out" with my other band members. Over the years, only Jeff Rouse and Mike Squires of LOADED have been near tall enough for me to look straight in the eye onstage. About 12 years ago, Mark Lanegan, Ben Sheppard, Mike Johnson, and I were going to form a band together for the simple fact that we were all tall. It sounds funny now, but we were serious about it then. If you are the only tall guy in a band, you run the risk of looking goofy if you're hunched over all the time.

I'm not trying to kick the back of your seat, I swear. I am THAT guy you will see on those Alaska Airlines flights from Los Angeles to Seattle. You know, the guy in seat 9C who looks miserable as they are serving snacks. Miserable because the tray is too low to lay out flat when it is fully pulled out of its vestibule! I am also that grumpy guy whose knees are completely bruised after the person in front of him decides to recline their seat. I always wonder what the guys in the NBA do when they fly? What does Krist Novoselic do? He is a good 4 inches taller than me!

I really am not a slouch. I know we have all seen those tall people out there whose postures have become perma-hunches (for some of the reasons that I have just named). So I have been faced with the quandary of standing tall without seeming like I am sticking out like a sore thumb. How do tall people keep their heads up when making conversation in public? How will I "bend at the knees" for all that I do now, when my legs get too weak in my 80s and 90s? I want to stand tall for sure, but I still want to fit in.

Officer, if you weren't a short unhappy fellow, you'd be speeding, too. My legs are fucking long, but my arms are not proportionate. I must play an ongoing game of seat and wheel adjustment so that my back doesn't get too sore from stooping forward so that my hands can rest at the 10 and 2 positions, or so my legs don't get too cramped when I bring the seat forward to save my back. If I had to be a truck driver for a living and do long hauls, I'd be a cripple in no time for sure.

I married up! My wife is 5'11" and our daughters are very tall for their ages. At least in my home, we can all fit in together. My wife modeled for a living for a long time, and it is only in that career (and some sports) that you can actually make a living because of your height. When she picked me up at Burbank Airport for our first blind date, it was marvelous to be able to look her in the eyes without craning my neck. It still is!

I'm not sure why we have such small dogs, though. That is a study for a whole other column. I'm going to take some Advil now ...

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/05/just_like_you_i_put_my_custom-.php

Learning the Old Jane's Addiction Jams

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, May. 20 2010

Never before have I been in a situation where I had to play bass lines written by someone else for a whole set. It is a challenge for sure, and an eye-opening experience as far as pushing my style in a different direction.

On June 9 and 11, I will be playing two European shows with Jane's Addiction. These gigs come at a time when we have been writing new songs for a while, and it's a chance to get outside the studio and sort of shake off the dust. But first I had to learn some of their old catalogue.

In all the bands I've been in, we have always done covers of other artists. GNR did Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and "Mama Kin" by Aerosmith. Neurotic Outsiders did "New Rose" by the Damned; VR did "Surrender" by Cheap Trick and "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd. And Loaded has done everything from "TNT" by AC/DC to "Purple Rain" by Prince. But all these covers were played by bands I had already been playing with for some time. They were simply our interpretations of these songs . . . good or bad.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was in the Jane's rehearsal room going through a set of JA classics, I found myself feeling really uncomfortable and unsettled. I couldn't figure it out. Was my bass rig not sounding right? Could I not hear Steven Perkins' bass drum well enough? Was I playing in the right groove and at the right volume? These are not things one should be thinking while playing. You should be in the moment and let things flow. And suddenly it dawned on me: I was playing bass parts for a whole set of songs that were written by someone else WITH the band that had recorded them. Oh . . . this is new!

JA's founding bassist, Eric Avery, was always a guy whom I very much respected as a bass player. Back in the mid-'80s club days in L.A., I remember going to see JA just to watch Avery and Perkins. The way they interwove rhythm was ridiculous, and a bit groundbreaking. For some reason over the years, he and I never actually met. This added to his mystique for me. So now as I am playing some of those bass lines, I feel the pressure that I perceive is probably out there. You know: Everyone will be looking at ME to see how I play those beloved bass lines, an integral part of the JA sound.

Really good bass players are a very rare thing in rock music. James Jamerson and Donald "Duck" Dunn from the Motown and Stax Records days set a high-water mark that has only been just touched upon since then.

John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin borrowed heavily from those two, but then added a lot of his own mojo and passed it forward for anyone else to try and improve on. Eric Avery and Robert DeLeo (from Stone Temple Pilots) have probably been the closest as far as carrying on JPJ's lineage, and this is meant as a huge compliment.

Paul Simonon from the Clash set the tone for me, as far as modern-day bass players go. He has such a killer sense of pocket and style. Randy Rampage from DOA and Simonon were for sure the two bassists who I chose to follow and mimic when I decided to switch from guitar to the four-strings in 1984.

Some of the great bass players from the post-'70s punk and noise era introduced more of a mood, almost a sense of color, to stereos around the world. Raven from Killing Joke is a good example of where the actual playing is not the thing that gets you; it's the attitude in which it's played that makes you want to break shit.

Krist Novoselic is a monster player too. Guys who I know and play with realize what a huge part he had in Nirvana's makeup. Without Krist being the aggressive and melodic player that he is and was, those records would have been oh-so-much different. You can actually hear his style develop and mature from Bleach to Nevermind to In Utero. I like it when I can hear and recognize a player getting better. I feel like I am somehow a part of it.

OK. So here I am, playing older Jane's songs and trying to be true to those bass lines while trying to infuse some of my own thing (whatever THAT is!). We are writing new songs, and I can only hope to leave my mark somehow and not do any damage to this great legacy.

At the end of the day, I still love what I do and am lucky to make a living at a thing that is also my passion.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/05/janes_addiction_duff_mckagan.php

Girls, Girls, Girls By Duff McKagan, Thursday, May. 27 2010 @ 8:55AM

Duff McKagan's column runs every Thursday on Reverb. He writes about what music is circulating through his space every Monday.
Last week, I had the pleasure of being home alone with my two daughters. My wife Susan, at long last, made the trip that her mom, aunt, sister, and herself were planning, down to Mexico. This left me some good quality time with my 9 and 12-year-old bundles of girly joy . . . and hormones.

At this point in my fatherdom, I certainly know where I can be of service to my girls. I also know it when I am completely lost and flummoxed by the quandaries that perplex only females. I am still under the assumption that a hike and maybe some "catch" with a baseball in the backyard can fix any and all problems with my girls.

Twelve-year-olds want nothing more than to be grown-up. Right now! Grace cannot wait to drive, and have an apartment and a job and be in college and not be walked to school in the morning by her mom and/or dad (how embarrassing!). When I tell Grace that she should sort of "enjoy youth" and not rush everything she does, she gives me a look like I am the oldest and nerdiest coot that ever walked the face of the earth. I don't feel like a coot. I guess maybe I DO look like a coot sometimes . . . but still, I am only just trying to pass on some shining pearls of wisdom.

Nine-year-olds who have older sisters want to be just exactly LIKE them, and this can often be a tough row to hoe. Mae is going to be a tough chick one day, as she now has to deal with a fair amount of rebuffment and push-back from her older sibling. This is part and parcel of being the youngest--I should know, as I was the youngest of eight kids.

I was really kind of excited for the girls' mom to be gone. I really thought that this would give me a chance to have some serious "Dad time" with my girls, and that they would somehow respond to my soothsayer-like genius in all things that deal with life in general. In my mind's eye, I would sort of be just waiting patiently--in my easy chair or cross-legged in a yoga position--as my girls clamored to be the first to spill all their life questions and problems to me. On Day 1 after school . . . they both went to their rooms with only a cursory "Hi, Dad." Day 2 was the same. Day 3, too.

That's OK. I know that the girls' school is finishing soon and that they have a lot of tests and such to study for. But a kid can't live on schoolbooks alone. I decided to take my daughters on a hike after school last Friday, and they were . . . delighted. Actually, they both groaned. "C'mon!", I said. I thought that surely a little fresh air and exercise would loosen their tongues, and that finally they could talk to me about life and ask for my insight and knowledge.

Sometimes I just have to put up the flag of surrender. I realize that--more often than not these days--I just don't understand girl stuff. I'm just absolutely lost sometimes. I have become enlightened to the fact that I must let the mini-dramas pass me by, not unlike letting the eye of a hurricane pass. In the past, I would meet these problems head-on and try to solve it all . . . or scold when certain behavior traits didn't seem right to me. While I am fair for sure, I AM still a disciplinarian of sorts. Actually, it is really my "dad- disappointment" that does the most toward any type of scolding. It is sweet, really, that my girls don't want to disappoint me. They seem to know it even before I am aware of it myself.

So here we go! Off on our hike on a fire road in a conservancy that is conveniently in my neighborhood down here in Los Angeles. But first I had to convince my girls to put on tennis shoes in place of their fancy sandals. They both gave me a look of "Oh, my God! What if a BOY sees us?!" As we were climbing the first hill, I noticed that Grace had her purse with her. As a male, I just don't get the reason why a young girl will have a purse. When I asked Grace why she had brought it along on a wooded and not-so-easy hike, she replied, "Lip gloss! Duh!!" Duh indeed. Sometimes I just got to keep my mouth shut and trudge on forward.

In the meantime, Buckley and I have a game to watch

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/duff_mckagan/

Summer Movie Rentals: War Is Hell

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Jun. 3 2010

I often give and get book suggestions here, but I'm not sure if I have yet to devote a whole piece to just movies. Last Monday was Memorial Day, and I got a good movie list by just looking at the GUIDE feature on my Direct TV menu.

When forced to rank my top all-time films, I always lean toward older movies, Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra movies especially. I am also a huge history geek, especially when it comes to war. War has always fascinated me. It's such a brutal thing. I do love a good war movie, and so goes this list.

Crossfire, starring Robert Mitchum: This movie is almost film noir, and serves the little-exposed subjects of anti-Semitism in America and the directionlessness of some of our servicemen after World War II. Made in 1947, it sort of flew in the face of the mostly uplifting film fare that was happening then. The director was probably a damn commie!

The Enemy Below, Robert Mitchum: WAY before Das Boot, this movie highlighted the claustrophobia of submarine warfare.

To Hell and Back, Audie Murphy: This film is excellent for the fact that it's about the most decorated U.S. soldier of WWII, STARRING the most decorated U.S. soldier of WWII as himself. Audie Murphy went on to a lot of Westerns after this, too. A real man's man, indeed!

The Big Red One, directed by Samuel Fuller: Fuller was known during the '50s for his subversive film subjects. The Big Red One, released in 1980, uses a tone of excellent imagery to show the brutality and senselessness of warfare.

Hamburger Hill, Don Cheadle: One of my brothers who was in Vietnam told me once that Hamburger Hill was the most realistic of all the 'Nam movies. Hamburger Hill shows a Marine unit fight and die and fight and die some more just to take a hill, a hill that they vacate after they capture it. Futile . . . pointless . . . dumb . . . ridiculous.

Where Eagles Dare, Clint Eastwood: Eastwood, Nazis, and stolen gold. Need I say more!?

Kelly's Heroes, Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles: If you have to ask, then you are lame.

Wake Island (1942): This film is extraordinary in that filming started just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and it serves as the very first of countless movies that would follow about WWII.

Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks: Probably the most vivid gore-showing and nerve-shattering flick about WWII. Tom Hanks is awesome.

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

On the Road With Jane's Addiction, Reminded of Some of Mankind's Troubling Detours

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Jun. 10 2010

I've been on a brief two-show European run with Jane's Addiction that started with a gig in Amsterdam. It certainly is interesting, the things that life will throw your way. If you had told me six months ago that I'd be playing with JA, you would have certainly received a sideways look back from me.

I have been extremely blessed as far as how long my career in music has lasted; this shit just isn't the norm. I love music, though, and my passion for what I do has yet to wane. As a matter of fact, my lust for this thing I do has grown.

The guys in Jane's are really great too. Stephen Perkins has a huge heart. Perry is a true "artist" and an original with no equal in his form. Dave Navarro is a virtuoso. Me? I just hope that I don't fuck up! That part in the song "Stop" where it's just bass chords and Perry's vocal has got me a bit wigged out. I just keep saying to myself, "Don't fuck it up, Duff." Those words have become my silent and constant mantra, as it were.

Jeff Rouse (bassist in Loaded) is out here with me as my bass tech. Luckily for me, he could do these shows. If nothing else, knowing that he is there on stage left will keep me from getting too inside of my head. Jeff and I have traveled the world together in Loaded, and share the same insane sense of dumb humor ("What do you call a donkey with three legs? A wonkey!").

When we got to town, Jeff and I went out on the streets of Amsterdam with his little Flip video recorder to make a new "Loaded/Jane's Addiction version" webisode. We of course drank too much coffee and tried to make a semblance of cohesive conversation with wary tourists. I get why people are scared of us--two tall tattooed guys with a camera, jabbering and asking questions like idiots. In our eyes, we are just being friendly and curious. To them, I am sure we appear as some sort of grievous threat.

Our hotel happens to be right next door to the Anne Frank house, a sobering thing for sure. Anne was the age of my own daughter, Grace, when she wrote her heartbreaking, brave, and hopeful diary as the Nazis closed in on her hideout some 65 years ago. That is not that long ago, is it? I am glad all that shit is over with . . . or is it? Back in my hotel room, the first story that came on BBC was of a growing and very visible Nazi party in Lithuania. Really?!!

While I was waiting in the lobby the other day, a very nice gentleman who works at the hotel approached me. He asked how I was enjoying my stay in Amsterdam. I assured him that things were as great as ever. I have been to this city probably a dozen times and have always enjoyed the liberalness and feeling of safety, not to mention the beauty of the architecture and the quaintness of the many canals and the bicycle traffic constantly whizzing past. My new friend's name is Landers.

Landers and I got into a lengthy conversation about society and government (it's not uncommon here to have detailed conversations with strangers). Now we all know that pot and prostitution are legal here . . . and taxed. AIDS and teenage pregnancy are also extremely low because of the amount of sex education in the schools here. Gay marriage is legal. Euthanasia is also legal to those too sick to go on in dignity or in too much pain. All of these things make so much plain and logical sense to me.

I've heard about the hilarious notion of a new country being formed whose southern border would be San Francisco and northern border Vancouver B.C. (I think the name bandied about is something like Cascadia). I'm sure the laws in this new Eden would mirror Holland's, and our natural and tech resources would be huge. Can you imagine that?

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

The Jane's Addiction Ride Continues: Two More Live Shows and Maybe a Few New Recordings

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Jun. 17 2010

Man! Am I ever lucky to be doing what I do! My tenure in Jane's Addiction recently took me to Europe for two shows with Rage Against the Machine in Arnhem, Holland, and Madrid, Spain. This was to be a real trial by fire for me with JA. Don't for a second think that I wasn't a little scared.

I generally have confidence in myself. Confidence to me doesn't mean anything else other than self-assurance. You have to be a little bit cocky to go onstage in front of a lot of screaming motherfuckers. I do put in the work, though, to at last gain the confidence . . . sort of like studying hard and being ready for a tough exam at school, or reading What to Expect When You're Expecting right before having a baby. Still, you can indeed be as prepared as possible, but still experience many and varied outliers than no amount of preparation can steel you for.

As the house lights went out before we took the stage on that first show, my heart started to speed up and my breathing became shallow and hurried. I couldn't think straight and my hands we shaking just a bit. I've experienced this before, and because of my lifelong affliction with panic disorder, I know now that when my "fight or flight" mechanisms shift into high gear, at least I am not going to die. But I was freaked the FUCK out.

A couple of the guys from RATM came to my side of the stage just then and gave me big smiles. I do believe that they too wanted to see what Jane's would sound like with me playing bass. These guys somehow gave me a sudden boost of confidence, and I was back to my normal self and breathing easy.

Arnhem is right on the German border, and from my past experience with German rock fans, they like their rock hard and heavy without frills or decoration. They loved GN'R. Velvet Revolver, on the other hand, never quite took hold there. Actually, I have never quite figured out what the German audience is into. A few years ago, VR played a huge hard-rock festival there with Slipknot and Korn, and believe it or not, Good Charlotte was the headliner. They fucking LOVE Good Charlotte, for whatever reason. The first JA show there last week was met with a sort of lukewarmish politeness with many quizzical stares--like they had no idea who we were. You can't win them all.

On to Madrid and the Rock in Rio festival. RIR stopped being held in Rio some five or six years ago, and instead goes now to either Portugal or Spain (whichever promoter can offer the most money to the folks who own the RIR rights). I had a feeling about this show, a premonition of sorts. Jeff Rouse from Loaded was out on these gigs with me, and he seemed to sense it too. This show would be different. This show would be good for JA.

Maybe it was the downing of a full Red Bull before I hit the stage (something I didn't do in Holland), but the roar of the huge crowd was deafening and glorious. We chose "Requiem" by Killing Joke as the intro music, and our sound guy just absolutely cranked it. If you know this song, then perhaps you can imagine the chills that were running down my spine (or was that the Red Bull rush? Truth be told, I drank TWO). The stage deck was massive and multi-tiered. Before I knew what was happening, I had run the 50-yard length of that stage several times back and forth, and we were only a few bars into the opening "Mountain Song."

Perry Farrell was in top form, conjuring his voodoo weirdness and owning the stage. He is a fucking true original, and many frontmen who came after him simply aped his thing. Dave Navarro is really a virtuoso, gifted with an enormous and effortless talent (fucker!). Stephen Perkins has the oddest style that has always seemed tailor-made for JA, and in my opinion, the band gained their sense of rhythmic trance because of him; no other drummer could have brought what he did (and still brings).

Sen Dog and B-Real from Cypress Hill were on my side of the stage. Either they really liked the band that night--or they were just insanely high on the high-test weed they had been hitting all day--but they both seemed caught up in the whole majesty of the JA thing. It was just as fun for me to watch Perry as the dudes from Cypress, OR the crowd!

These are the gigs that as a performer keep you coming back and trying harder to be good at your craft. Yes, my life kicks ass. We just recorded an undisclosed number of new Jane's Addiction songs that are really fucking good and hark back to some of the old magic. (Editor's note: These songs may or may not have names yet. But that's a good question/) I will be making a new record with the ever-genius Loaded this summer, too . . . it looks like my dance-card will be full to the brim this year. Bring it!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Loaded Summer

By Duff McKagan

Well, HELL! First off, I must admit that I thought the column that my daughter Grace and I wrote together last week was only going to meet perhaps a polite response. Was I ever wrong! It gives weight to the suspicion I've had that the columns I have written about family are really the most widely read and commented on. It's like you all are saying "Yeah, great GNR story, Duff, but get back to some more of that all-girl household/dorky-dad/Buckley-the-dog stuff!"

They are running the "Grace column" in print this week for you locals. Grace is now running around the house convinced she is going to be the next Anne Rice or something. Whatever, Grace . . . !

This summer was really quite excellent all the way around--if only for the simple fact that I got to be home in Seattle for most of it. No real touring, and therefore I was with all my women in June, July, and August. I am indeed ready for football season to start, though.

Not that it was all-girls-all-the-time this summer. No, the most excellent Loaded was back at it making a record. Famed producer Terry Date (Soundgarden, Pantera, Deftones, Prong, Screaming Trees, just to name a very few) came in to the Loaded fold somehow just before we were to start this record and offered his assistance in a producer role. Yeah, when Terry Date wants to do your record, you run and not walk straight to that man.

Actually, who could blame Terry? We are all pretty smokin' hot dudes, and our collective wit and charm has yet to be matched anywhere west of the Mississippi. Truth be told, though, Mr. Date is probably still scrubbing himself in the shower a whole week now after we have finished, in an attempt to get our off-color humorist hue out of his skin.

For those of you who follow the band, you will also know that having Terry produce this new record is a departure from Martin Feveyear, the producer of the first two Loaded records. Martin is not only our producer, but one of my dearest friends, and I can probably speak for the other fellas in the band when I state that this was a very tough decision for us. Martin totally understood and told us to make a great record. I love you, pal.

In a summer filled with girls and pink fluffy "cute" stuff, it was an equalizing pot of gold to get in a studio with "the fellas." Terry Date has ESPN and Mariners games playing silently on the TV screen in the studio at all times. If no games are on, he will change it up to the Discovery show with that dude who catches all the strangest fish he can find all over the world. Man stuff for sure!

The odors that start to happen when it is just dudes hanging in the same room for 12 hours at a time can be quite stunning, to be sure. It's weird. The smells--as I have noted--are almost always preceded by a sharp and quick muffled noise. I wonder what that is all about. Studio X smells JUST like our tour bus. Strange.

And the humor. Uh. WOW. For those of you who may know me on a personal level or have come to a Loaded show, you know that I like to tell jokes. Some of you may even think my jokes are dumb and crass. No. The jokes that I tell in public are simply the cream of the crop of what I prune from long studio sessions and such. If you think MY jokes are dumb . . .

We hope to find Loaded a label home that will do our record a bit more justice this time around. There is not a group of guys anywhere who deserve more reciprocation from a like-minded, hard-working record company. But THAT is another story!

Yes. It is time now to start routing a tour for next spring and summer, and to get back on some of those awesome festivals that were so good to us last tour. The story of Loaded is set to continue. Gauging from this excellent summer with my bandmates, the story will include a huge dose of our wackiness and humor. Thank God!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/09/one_loaded_summer.php

Notes From the Hoot: Kim Virant, Kristen Ward, and Victoria Wimer Contreras
By Duff McKagan
Thu., Sep. 9 2010 @ 11:49AM

Last week, as we were running down the songs at the rehearsal night before The Hootenanny for a Healthy Gulf at the Moore Theater, it suddenly dawned on me that I had written or otherwise talked about everyone who participated, except for three--Kim Virant, Kristen Ward, and Victoria Wimer Contreras.

If you read my column, then you already know how highly I regard the other Hoot musicians, like Star Anna, Mark Pickerel, Shawn Smith, Rachel Flotard, etc. As a matter of fact, it is just plain odd, if you are me, to play with some of the most talented musicians on this planet, and see that some of them are still trying to "break" themselves on a larger scale, while my career broke many years ago. I am in no way a better player or more of a personality than the rest of these folks. There is just no rhyme or reason in the music industry. To try to at least do this industry a little justice, then, I would like to tell those of you who don't know about these three ladies in a bit more detail and color.

Kristen Ward has put out a couple of rock-flavored records in the last few years, but it is her latest alt-country record Charles that may best suit her amazing talent. She has a voice that is sweet and gentle and can seem like it just drips around you, or wraps you in a warm coat. Kristen doesn't need all the ruckus and noise of loud rock to hide her voice behind, and I think perhaps the song "Maybe" off Charles best exemplifies what I am trying to get across. Check it out.

Kristen and her musical partner, the great and mighty Gary Westlake, have just started to venture out of the Northwest, playing some shows down in Los Angeles. I would recommend trying to see a show now . . . something you can store in your "I saw her when" file. No bullshit.

Next up, Kim Virant. If you are anywhere near Seattle, then of course you have probably seen a KV show. For those of you who haven't, well, it may be a bit simplistic for me to try to describe and compare Kim to say, Stevie Nicks . . . but that IS the ballpark and high-water mark that Kim lives in. She is comfortable singing in about any format, from hard rock to country murder ballad, but her CD from last year, Songs From a Small House, pretty much nailed her comfort zone, the place where she flourishes most . . . her own music! Check out "Love Ain't for the Weak" off this record. It's a really nice song featuring beautiful song-craftsmanship.

Kim's musical partner just happens to be the Hoot's drummer and general man-behind-the-scenes, Chris Friel . . . a killer all-around dude if it's me you are askin'.

Victoria Wimer Contreras is by no means last on this list, for any reason other than that I knew she would be the hardest to write about. She has the most "legitimate" musical background of ANYONE who was on that stage that night. She has studied with Maestro David Kyle (vocal coach to Ann Wilson, Liza Minnelli, and Geoff Tate, just to name a very few). Victoria studied music and vocal jazz in the esteemed Central Washington University music program. Her leanings have been more toward jazz until recently (thank God for us rock and country fans). Her duet of Oasis' "Wonderwall" with Jeff Rouse at the Hootenanny was a stunning jaw-dropper. She doesn't have anything up on iTunes yet, but check out "This Is Not Goodbye" on her MySpace page for at least a tiny example of what she is capable of. If the world were right all of the time, Victoria would be a huge star right now.

It is very fortunate for all you locals that you will be able to catch Star, Kim, Kristen, Victoria, AND Rachel Flotard at their tribute to Patsy Cline this Saturday, 7:30 p.m., at The Triple Door in downtown Seattle. This is an absolute don't-miss!

A couple of asides: If you get a chance to see Tim Dijulio, the guitar player for the Hootenanny band, do it. For now, you can see him shred on the YouTube clip of Shawn Smith's version of "Purple Rain" from that Hoot-Moore show.

Also, Paul Hutzler made his pedal-steel debut at the Hoot. He only started playing this instrument one year ago, and with eight hours a day of practice, made himself world-class on this hardest of all instruments!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2 ? t.php#more

OK, Let's All Chip In on This One

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Sep. 16 2010

Sometimes things just get stuck in my craw and I just can't shake them. Sometimes these things can be good and funny, like the fact that my daughters think I am just SO embarrassing these days. But other times, the things that get me pissed off and keep me there are when foolish and thoughtless crime puts the innocent in danger or leaves them with nothing.

Last Christmas, I wrote a piece in the Weekly on the Ronald McDonald House here in Seattle by Children's Hospital. The RMH is a place of last resort for families whose children are undergoing cancer treatment and have no place to stay in the Seattle area. For all of the wonderful work and service that RMH provides, it is still not a place you want to be . . . needless to say.

The Ronald McDonald House is just a few short blocks from my house. Over the last 15 years, I have met some of these parents, and have felt first-hand the sheer tragedy that overtakes a family who has sold everything and is in debt to the hilt for the sake of medical co-pays and the like.

I saw a segment last Thursday night on KING 5-TV that shook me to the core.

The segment is about Jeremy and Karen Hartle and their 3-year-old son, John. They are a Montana family here in Seattle at the Ronald McDonald House while the boy gets cancer treatment. John has stage-4 neuroblastoma which has metastasized to every bone in his body.

Last Thursday night, on top of everything else, the Hartle family truck was stolen from right outside of the RMH. Their 2002 Ford F250 had been their lifeline.

From the KING 5 article:

"Who does that?" says Jeremy. "Who steals a car right in front of a place like this?"

"I'm 7 months pregnant and we had a lot of material things for the baby in the truck," says Karen.

On top of this, this truck contained medical equipment for the care of John, Jeremy's work tools for his masonry business back in Montana, and new stuff for the pending little baby. All of this stuff was in the truck because there is just no room left in the apartment provided by RMH.

This truck provides the only transportation for this couple to get back and forth to Kalispell to see their two other children.

So that was it. If you are at all like me, you are at this moment looking around for information on how to help the Hartles. Here is what I have found out . . .

There IS a bank account in Kalispell, Montana for the Hartles. It had been set up earlier to donate to the family for the ongoing care of John and the ongoing cost of having a family when you just suddenly have to drop everything and go to Seattle . . . before they knew that some asshole thief was going to steal their truck here.

Mike Bickford at Bickford Ford in Snohomish heard about this story and has absolutely stepped up to the plate. They have contacted the family and have offered to cover almost half of what it would cost to replace this truck.

I know where I am buying MY next car.

I feel that a sense of community can be attained suddenly. There are times when I think this city is just getting too big and mean, and then I hear about something like this, a car dealership and its third-generation owner taking the time to give a hand. Outstanding.

The Hartles DO have insurance, but as we all know, it won't cover the full price of replacement, not to mention the contents of the truck.

So there is room for us to help, and it's not a huge number. It is attainable! I'm not in the practice of asking the readers here to help with a cause financially, but this one is extra-different. This happened in OUR town. These people are on OUR watch. Let's DO this!

Johnhartle.info

Three Rivers Bank
233 E. Idaho
P.O. Box 7250
Kalispell, MT 59904
(406)755-4271
contact Kay Ross
kross@3riversbank.com

Also, you can contact Bickford Ford directly.

Dan Hudson
Danh@bickford.net
(425)212-2811

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/09/ok_lets_all_chip_in_on_this_on.php

10 Things I Wish I'd Known When I Started a Band

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Sep. 23 2010

First, I must say that there is really nothing that I would or could change about my story thus far in the context of the bands I have been in . . . or how I have conducted myself and bandmates' reactions to certain situations. It is what it is (and it has been what it has been).

HOWEVER! Because SW's REVERB Local Music Festival is coming up (Oct. 9, Ballard), it may be helpful if I could perhaps dispense a few dos and don'ts to new and up-and-coming rock bands.

Believe me, I have walked into a few brick walls in my times of rock-and-roll madness. I've matriculated sometimes only because this person or that showed me how to walk AROUND that same virtual brick edifice. On that note, here are 10 tips to muse on, mixed in with time bombs to hopefully avoid!

1. If you are one of those people who got into music for the chicks and drugs and not the passion of a song and the power of musical moments, go home. Wankers.

2. Don't smoke crack on a leased private jet. The smell gets into EVERYTHING!

3. Like the people in your band. Or at least use the animosity within your band as a springboard for great fucking art!

4. Have a kick-ass band name. Unless your band is so good that your band name is THAT secondary, choose a name that means something to the band and has some sort of imagery that is a reflection of the music. Let's face it, the band name MUSE is kinda lame. But once you see or hear the band, the name is the last thing you think about.

5. Don't sign a deal that ties you up with one particular manager. There is no real upside for the artist here. If a manager believes in you and can get you good tours and nice licensing deals, etc., well, then just give the manager commissions on that stuff. Trust me. Not signing a deal keeps a manager hustling FOR the artist.

6. Don't get addicted. Drugs and alcohol can seem sexy and fun--for a while . . . until you can't live WITHOUT them. Then it's all dumb and terrifying.

7. Watch how the business works around you. Ask questions constantly and never be embarrassed to do so. "How much does a T-shirt cost to make?" or "What does publishing really mean?" are just two examples.

8. From the start, try to ascertain that you and your bandmates have the same goals. Back when Guns N' Roses first started, there WAS a different lead guitar player and drummer. When Axl, Izzy, and myself booked a punk-rock style tour of the West Coast in 1985, and these two other guys didn't want to leave the comfort of L.A., we went and found guys who DID! Thankfully and serendipitously, we found Slash and Steven Adler!

9. Get used to being away from cozy shit and the safety of home. Bring your teddy bear if you need to. And get Skype.

10. Don't be an asshole to other bands. If you are good and stay around for a while, being an asshole PERIOD is going to make life very hard for you.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/09/10_things_i_wish_id_known_when.php

Quote from: FunkyMonkey on September 16, 2010, 08:24:28 PM

Well This is so unique . I am from Snohomish, Wa and I went to school with Mike Bickford who owns Bickford Motors. I have also purchased many vehicles in my day from the dealership. As sad as it is that someone had to take from these people who are in such a harsh position anyway just completely sucks, but someday those thieves will obviously face judgement day. Thank You Mike for your generosity you are a saint. I will be stopping by today to make a donation to this devasted family along with some great prayers for all of you. God Bless!!

msaxl43

Slash Dance

You've heard his axe, but my friend's dance moves will shred you to pieces.

By Duff McKagan Wednesday, Sep 29 2010

The first time I heard Slash play guitar was in 1984 in the basement of the Los Angeles townhome belonging to his mother, Ola, a woman who would later become like a surrogate mother to me during my early years in L.A.

Slash didn't have to try to impress?he just picked up an acoustic guitar and started to play. Up to that point, I really thought I had seen and heard the whole gamut of the talent pool of my age group in America. I had toured extensively with punk-rock bands, and had seen just about every band that came through Seattle from '79 to '84. But when Slash played in that basement that night, all I thought I knew was suddenly swept aside.

Through the years, he's been asked to play guitar with everyone from Michael Jackson to Rihanna, but it was sometime in late 1988?the year after our first band, Guns N' Roses, had released its debut, Appetite for Destruction?that I knew Slash had transcended anything like flash-in-the-pan or local-hero status. It wasn't due to the growing press he received, or some other outside force. It was from an Irishman?a call from guitar legend Rory Gallagher.

Rory asked our manager if Slash would like to come down and play on "Whipping Post," the Allman Brothers Band's rolling blues-rock anthem that Rory was well-known for playing live. It was, for sure, just a small gig at the Roxy, but from where I stood, I was proud that my friend and bandmate had stood his ground that night in the company of a legend.

Slash has been through the fucking ringer of rock-and-roll excess?blistering highs and soul-crushing lows?and has come through it all with a grin. And there are always plenty of grins to be had when Slash is in the room. I'm pretty sure that most of you don't know that Slash is also a world-class Russian crouch-down-and-kick-your-legs-out dancer. OK, perhaps not technically world-class, but he has been known to bust it out from time to time when a comical moment is needed.

Earlier this year, Slash released a record that had been percolating inside him since at least 1992. Slash, his first-ever solo record?to which I am honored to have contributed?is a badass culmination of his hard-won songwriting skills and kick-butt guitar playing. The who's-who of guest singers on the record?from Ozzy Osbourne to Fergie?shows how much respect Slash gets in our industry. If you are a fan of rock and fucking roll?or crazy Russian dance moves?don't miss this gig.

Slash With Bad City. Showbox SoDo. Sold out. 8:30 p.m. Sat., Oct. 2.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-09-29/music/slash-dance/

Question: What Did the Buddhist Say to the Hot Dog Vendor?

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Oct. 7 2010

Answer: Make me ONE with everything!

Yeah, well, I want some of that. I only use levity here because I like to tell a good joke--and the joke itself highlights in reality, something that I yearn for. As hard as I try for some semblance of tranquility in this journey of life, it seems that there is always some sort of mini-drama playing out somewhere on the sideline. And I know that I play a part in them ... if only just simply by reacting.

I should be a master in the art of band politics by this point in my life, but I find myself often caught in the trappings of drama and intrigue. Man, it's true: as often as I tell myself just to 'keep my side of the street clean' (that is, take responsibility for what I do, and try to walk a somewhat straight-ish path), I can get a little bit lazy with my personal program or belief, and I find myself in the midst of gossip and/or angling for a better position.

I think we probably all do this to some extent. At work and in our personal lives. we naturally all want what is best for ourselves ... and our loved ones. Did anyone see that ESPN shot of that young couple at the Houston Astros game this season? When an errant foul ball came their way, the guy moved out of the way and fully exposed his girlfriend to the full brunt of the baseball's impact. Ouch. Even if we want our workplace to excel in sales or whatever, and our love life to be as pristine as a Hallmark card, we often put ourselves first in the equation, even if we're unaware.

Back to the band. I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but how am I am supposed to give, say, a new singer in Velvet Revolver--should we decide to find one-- a fighting chance, given all of my past history with our previous singer, Scott Weiland? Truth be told, I have a lot in common with Scott and I only wish him the very best. BUT! I still feel a little bit screwed by that situation. Not screwed over by Scott himself, per se, but by allowing myself to get hung up on some major-league, old-school rock trappings, and getting stuck there. A work environment mixed with the emotion of trying to portray a shared vision and sound can sometimes just get downright ridiculous.

This time I will just try it differently. This time, I will try and avoid the intrigue and not try for an angle. I'm sure I did it before. I'm SURE I did. I just wanted that band to be as great as I knew it could be. I probably let a lot of truths go flying past me in the process. This is life, I suppose.

All I can do from here is learn from the past, and adjust myself accordingly.

My girls are both of an age--10 and 13--when things at school and in their personal lives get acutely magnified. These things get brought straight into our house after school. You see, 10- and 13-year-olds rarely have a "filter"... In situations more and more frequently, I find myself reacting with either a big voice or just straight-up annoyance. It's not cool that I do this. I tell myself this when it happens. I write about these things for you so that I can at least write down what is happening. This column has been a wonderful tool for me to both flesh out personal/family issues and to keep myself in check. I know that you people read this. Because you read it, I cannot contradict myself. Damn!

I went to Seattle University--a Jesuit school--a few years back. If you know anything about Jesuit schools, you will o know that the Jesuits require a ton of philosophy courses for their students to advance. Hence, I am a quasi-expert armchair philosopher. There is a Buddhist saying that says, and I paraphrase:

"Be the water flowing down the stream, and not the boulder in the stream trying to hold the water back."

I like this meditation.

I wonder if simple edicts like these are attainable anymore. The Information Age brings with it a mad plethora of gadgetry that keeps our minds racing with too much monkey business. I have to drink way too much coffee just to keep up.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/10/question_what_did_the_buddhist.php

More Musings.....Responsibility?

by Duff McKagan on Sunday, October 17, 2010

RESPONSIBILTY?

By Duff McKagan

About 19 years ago, I wrote a song with and for Guns N Roses, called ?Get In The Ring?. At that point in our career, we had ceased to be the darlings of critics. When our band started to ?blow up?, it became apparent that there was an almost sudden sea-change in how our live shows and records were getting critiqued in the press. No big deal really; you just realize that this kind of stuff comes with the territory.

But what interested me then was: Why would a critic come to our show when it was often openly obvious that he or she didn?t like us in the first place? Why waste the time? Why spread a vitriolic point of view? Hence, the first line in that song-

?Why do you look at me when you hate me??

Flash forward to now: I write for a paper that has music critics. With my history, it interests me as to who our music critics are-in a purely educational way. I can?t lie; I actually do keep tabs and have barked loudly internally here at The Weekly when I feel vitriol and prejudice played a part in any review that I might happen upon. I?m sure that my ?friends? here at the paper have dwindled by a writer or two.

A year or so ago, I touched upon the subject of how online news and entertainment sites are sort of just plain taking over. Print newspapers and magazines are dying off. For good or for bad, this is just the way it is. Information-Age economics have dictated a change in MANY areas (music downloads, online movie rentals, and etc).

In writing for The Seattle Weekly, I have benefited first-hand from this change. I have been given the chance to learn how to write to a certain degree-with some good tutelage and encouragement even. But still, I am certainly not a bona-fide journalist, or anything close to it. I?m just a guy who writes stuff.

I am a serious reader too. I believe that when given a responsibility like a weekly column, one should rise to the occasion. Seattle is a very literate city, and I feel honored to be writing for one of its respected periodicals. I have high expectations from others here too.

To do less than one?s best is just sloppy, in my view at least.

Although I certainly understand the importance of drawing readers to certain sites by having a juicy scoop or a story with conflict-the more ?hits? a site gets, the higher the advertisement revenue- I just don?t get why certain writers think they can either dictate from an Ivory Tower of judgment or just slander recklessly.

You have read these writers, and so have I.

For me, a site like The Seattle Weekly?s or, say, The Village Voice?s, should be a place to sort of come in from the storm. You all should be able to trust us writers at these quasi-esteemed papers. That is my view at least. The writers must earn the trust of the public though. When a writer pens a piece that is outwardly obviously intended to be prejudicial (good or bad), or badly researched, the whole lot of writers for that paper are somewhat soiled. Again, this is just my opinion.

Am I alone in this view?

I?ve got an editor here at The Weekly, Chris Kornelis. He is a smart dude and has at times ?held me to task? or otherwise questioned the intent of this piece or that. He has made me think and helped me to be better. He has his boss, and it goes up from there. Who holds THOSE guys to task? Those ?editors of editors?? I trust that their experience and drive for excellence does.

I write for The Seattle Weekly because I love to do it. It is a sizeable challenge and it gives me a chance to interact on topics that I am curious or otherwise interested in. There are countless blogs and whatnot out there that have a whole lot less to offer than we have here. You can get biased or sloppily written ?takes? and articles on music at countless sites, I am sure. There are plenty of right or left-leaning political sites too, if you like steeper ?slants?. Online newspapers like this one ARE the new paradigm for the straight-ish dope though, and as such, are the new gate-keepers of truth and insight. Or they should be, from where I sit.

If I don?t like, say, Mel Gibson?I will be responsible enough to pull myself out of the running if approached to write an article on his new movie (IF he had and new movie, and IF I didn?t like Mel Gibson). It would be biased and not very righteous of me to knowingly sit in the wings for such an easy attack-IF this was the case.

Neither should it be all peaches and cream, though. I like reading people?s thoughts and insights, especially when they are intellectual and researched and whatever else.

Being a writer now for online papers these days I think, brings with it, a new burden of self-restraint. There are enough crappy things going on around us in this world and a tainted and spiteful article about someone?s art just adds noxious noise.

Here is the complete column:

London, Axl, and Continued "Patience"

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Oct. 28 2010

In 1984, Izzy Stradlin lived in an apartment across the street from me in Hollywood, right behind the Chinese Theater off Hollywood Boulevard. The man seemed to ALWAYS have an acoustic guitar in his hands, and was always writing bits and pieces of songs. He still does this today.

There was one especially melodic thing that he had been working on, and every once in a while he would dust it off and work on it some more.

By 1986, our band Guns N' Roses had a record deal. With that money, I put myself on a small stipend that could basically pay my rent--or half-rent, I should say--for about six months.

One of my best friends at the time was looking to move to Hollywood from her parents' house somewhere in Orange County. She and I decided that we could share rent on a one-bedroom apartment on Gardner; she would get the bedroom, and I the floor of the dining room (which I cordoned off into my little den of darkness).

My other good friend then was a guy named Del James, a recent transplant from New York who became an important part of our tightknit little group of friends and ersatz consiglieres.

Del needed a place to crash for a week or so, and back then, what was mine was his. During that first week of couch-surfing at my apartment, Del and my roommate Debby became romantic, and Del moved from the couch to her bedroom.

Del was an avid reader, and turned me onto a book called Slugs by Shaun Hutson. I remember just sitting in my bedroom/dining room with my curtain pulled taught, and reading this book with life sort of swirling around me in our apartment. There were drugs aplenty then, and Valium was the drug-of-the-month at that particular point.

I remembered Izzy's little ditty, which at that point had a working title of "Patience," and I wrote a lyrical verse then that went, '"I sit here doing drugs/Reading a book about slugs/All I need is a little patience."

This horrible lyric never made it past my apartment front door, thank God. Axl came up with a great lyric, seemingly out of nowhere, that of course became the story and melody of that song. The whistle part at the beginning--a ballsy move by Axl--while seeming odd to some of our fans and critics alike when the record Lies was released, became a part of pop culture. The song just wouldn't be the song without it, right? This was always one of my favorite GN'R songs that we did live.

A few years ago, when Loaded was recording something or other (maybe "Wasted Heart"?), I counted in the song. On playback, someone in the room exclaimed that the count-in (me) sounded like the recorded count-in of "Patience," which is also me. For a while, the joke went that if I couldn't get a good table at a restaurant, I could simply say "One-two-one-two-three-four," and the gates would open for me.

Sometimes things come at me like that. It is impossible to gauge the impact of stuff you have been a part of. It is only when something like what happened to me in that control-room of the Loaded session happens, that I realize the mark a song like "Patience" made . . . or makes still.

Life can throw curveballs at us when we are least prepared. So many odd circumstances have befallen me over the years that I've come to almost expect the unexpected these days.

Two weeks ago, I flew off to London for a week's worth of non-music-related business. Mere hours after landing at Heathrow I found myself onstage with a friend that I have been to hell and back with, and lived to tell the tale. Axl and I just happened to be in hotel rooms next to each other. Unexpected? Oh, fuck yes.

Sometimes, though, it takes a serendipitous moment like this to put some important things into perspective. I for one was glad we were sort of thrown into meeting. I hope he was, too, for the sake of the pounds of flesh that we shed in the struggle and fray.

Mostly we laughed, and that was indeed great.

That same night, I found myself onstage playing "Patience" in front of 14,000 people at the 02 Arena. To put it lightly, this is not what I had expected when I boarded my flight the night before for my business trip. Crazy shit.

This chance meeting gave me pause for thought and reflection. Many of you have asked me to write about this gig and our meeting. Other magazines and whatnot have tried to contact me for a "statement." Really? A STATEMENT? I'll state this: Trust is built on foundations of granite. Trust is not built when a late-breaking story can prompt you to gossip.

I did an interview for our local rock station, KISW, about a week after the gig. They have started to play a new Loaded song in preparation for our halftime performance at the Nov. 7 Seahawks game as part of Veterans Appreciation Day. The song, "Fight On," was written by Loaded as a nod to our fallen and fighting young men and women. I was doing promo for the gig and the song (profits from the download will go to our Puget Sound VA HealthCare System). The conversation on BJ Shea's "Morning Show" naturally took a turn from "Fight On" to my participation onstage with Axl. I've been on BJ's show enough times to know that they wouldn't ask me anything dumb or be otherwise rude or untoward. They let me say my piece, and that was it.

I hope you all understand, and thanks for reading.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/10/london_axl_and_continued_patie.php#more

Hometown Songs for Hometown (Sports) Fans

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Nov. 4 2010

Regular readers of this column know I am a big fan of sports. I'm a huge Mariners fan, I mourn the Sonics, and I bleed the Hawks' teal and green.

When I watch games live or on TV, I am always pretty pumped when I hear one of my bands' songs being played. It was a dream come true to be in the room when the Sonics beat Salt Lake in seven games to make the NBA finals in 1996, with the crowd going nuts, confetti falling from the air, and "Paradise City" blaring from the rafters.

Of course, this can go both ways. Much as I love New York City, I cringe at the thought of "Welcome to the Jungle" being played to pump up fans at Yankee Stadium. It is then that I am the opposite of pumped, and I always think to myself, "No. That song wasn't written for YOU guys!" Yes, I am a sports nerd. Those of you who spent your youth following our local teams, as I did, can probably relate to how excited I am about what I get to do this week: My band, Loaded, is going to play the Seattle Seahawks halftime show this Sunday. I've been blessed with many high points in my career, but playing halftime for the Hawks is a milestone for me.

Some of you may be scratching your heads. Loaded is not a ubiquitous band. We are not on everyone's iPod or car stereo or rock station. This column has been a great meeting place for ideas. Some good stuff has transpired because of the contacts made through my tenure here at the Weekly.

When I wrote about my mountain-climber buddy Tim Medvetz a few months ago (and his taking wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to the highest peaks on the planet), I received an e-mail from Ken LeBlond from our local Puget Sound VA hospital, and a connection was made.

Tim haunted me a while back with a story about some of the wounded vets he's met: 19-year-old kids who have lost a limb or two and are now back on their mom's couch somewhere in Minnesota or whatever, with nothing to fill the void but gut-wrenching depression.

Tim's story really stuck with me, and when we started writing songs for this new Loaded record, I dedicated a song called "Fight On" to these men and women.

With the acquaintance of Mr. LeBlond through this column, and Ryan Madayag of the Seahawks, we three have partnered to make "Fight On" available for download on iTunes exclusively for the benefit of VA Puget Sound Health Care System. This Sunday when we play is Seahawks Veterans' Appreciation Day. A thousand veterans and their families will be on the field at halftime when we play live.

The way that this whole thing came together just plain gives me chills, and makes it seem that we are doing something good here.

The "Gas Man" at KJR sports radio, Mike Gastineau, has been a big proponent of Loaded, and was the first one here in town to wave a flag for getting one of our songs used by our local sports teams. He played a song called "We Win" about six weeks ago, just after we had recorded it.

I am very--well, stoked. I don't mean to shamelessly self-promote or otherwise seem like I am using this space to pimp myself out, but hell, I'm gonna do it anyhow. My NFL team, the Seattle Seahawks, are using the new Loaded song as a means to get the team and fans pumped.

I imagine that some of you reading now are big sports fans, right? OK, so put yourself in MY place. Imagine that you wrote a song and now your favorite team is using it. AND you now get to play at their halftime.

Not only that: When I was in London a few weeks back, I received an e-mail request from someone at MLB to use "We Win" as musical content for their TV and online channels. I thought it was kind of premature for Major League Baseball to contact me in October about the following season, and I let them know that I had never received a song license request so far in advance. No, it was for THIS season. The World Series, to be exact.

Not bad for our little band from Seattle.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/11/hometown_songs_for_the_hometow.php

Service and Suffering Plus Redemption and Forgiveness at the VA Hospital

By Duff McKagan, Fri., Nov. 12 2010

My Loaded bandmates--Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse--and I were invited on Monday to go to the Seattle VA Hospital and visit some of the patients. It was much less a "celebrity" thing than simply an "interaction with someone other than hospital staff" thing.

Through this column, I have become acquainted with Ken LeBlond, the public-relations guy at our Puget Sound VA Hospital. Here is a guy who does all he can either to raise money or pump up awareness for the plight of our fallen and often forgotten veterans. He had reached out to me and my band to see if we could and would make a visit.

I was kind of left scratching my head a bit. It is in situations like this that I find myself feeling a little embarrassed, maybe. I know for a fact that Loaded is not a household name and therefore not a band that most patients up at the VA would know about or recognize. I voiced my concern to Ken, and he calmly stated that this was not the point. But more on that in a minute.

We had written a song this past summer for our new record (which comes out in February) called "Fight On." The song was inspired by personal stories I heard about the plight of some of our returning vets. So here at least was somewhat of a tie-in between Loaded and the VA.

A sobering thing to think about is that with all the new-technology armor and immediate and high-caliber medical attention that our soldiers are getting on the battlefield, we are seeing a much higher survival rate than ever before. In other words, and to put it bluntly, guys and gals who would have certainly died in Vietnam from terminal wounds and injuries are now not dying.

But we have now more and more kids coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with missing limbs, disfigured bodies, and spinal-cord injuries. Also, with all this armor, more kids are surviving as witnesses to their buddies' deaths. Post-traumatic stress disorder is almost rampant now among our returning soldiers. Think about that.

What we noticed on our visit to the VA was an overwhelming sense that these soldiers just really believe that they have been forgotten and that no one cares about them anymore. I suddenly realized that Ken did not necessarily ask our band to visit so much because of our celebrity. No, he was just simply and hopefully seeing if we'd come as human beings that would maybe talk to the guys we saw. To show that someone gave a shit. I guess through this column and what I had written about in the past, Ken surmised that we would be likely candidates to do just that--give a shit. That's all. It was that simple.

With the pain issues from injury and the rising onslaught of Vicodin, Oxycontin, and the rest, the addiction wing at the VA is a bustling hub. Alcohol abuse seems to be the only cure, too, for others suffering from PTSD. When Mike, Jeff, and I visited there, I finally felt at home. Let's just say that I qualify for entry. We had a really deep and inspiring visit with some of those suffering right now. Suffering from withdrawal. Suffering from guilt. People trying to find an answer for why and how the fuck they got themselves into a place like this! It's simple at the end of the day. We are after all, human; and as humans, we are all fallible. We are also, though, capable of redemption and forgiveness to ourselves.

I am a semi-learned student of history with an open mind to all sides of different stories. I have a healthy skepticism of our government, of those that govern other countries, and of religious sects and factions. I have the freedom, though, to express my thoughts publicly without fear of prosecution. I have traveled far and wide, and know from my travels that we indeed have it good here in the United States. I'm not some pro-American nutcase, just a guy who appreciates the difference between the haves and the have-nots.

I want to wish all of our veterans a very happy belated Veterans Day. I want to thank you for your service. I am awed by some of your stories. I care.

I hope through the writing of this that some of you readers will stop by next time you are in the neighborhood of the VA. Tell your friends and family. Write a card to a patient there. I found out too that dirty jokes are appreciated up there. Thanks for reading.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/11/service_and_suffering_plus_red.php

Upton Sinclair, Thomas Pynchon, Adam Hochschild: This Time of Year Brings Out the Book Discusser In Me

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Nov. 18 2010

Fall is suddenly upon us, and in the Northwest, all seemingly at once. I am a year-round, every-night reader, but this time of year seems to bring out the book "discusser" in me. Goofy, right? Yeah, well . . . you all know what you are going to get when you read this column. Nerd-fest. Me.

There was a discussion last week about civil war and colonization in Africa. A couple of great books that initially informed me about the ins, outs, and causes of these conflicts are:

Hotel Rwanda, Terry George: A fairly good film adaptation of this book starring Don Cheadle brought much-needed international attention to the suffering innocents left on the bloody trail of rampage and revenge there. It seems that once the common oppressor left (those nations who colonized those parts of Africa), the old warring tribes were left to remember old beefs. Fucking hardcore.

King Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hochschild: Hochschild is, in my opinion, one of the most readable and well-researched writers of our modern times. This is THE ultimate story of the colonization of Africa, with no thought whatsoever to the effects on its human beings.

Bury the Chains, Adam Hochschild: A different angle on this story--slavery out of Africa, and the resulting anti-slave movement that started in England around 1760 or so. Both of these Hochschild books are "must-reads."

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, Philip Gourevitch: A most heartbreaking and maddening story of senseless and inhuman slaughter among brothers and sisters.

I got a text from a friend the other day asking if I had read the new Keith Richards book? He said that he had to put the book down a few times during the heroin-withdrawal parts (a fate that this particular friend had gone through more than a few times). On my friend's recommendation, then:

Life, Keith Richards: Hey, Orion is the publisher that's putting out my book in the UK next year. This book MUST be good!

Old Gods Almost Dead, Stephen Davis: I know firsthand that Davis is not the most thorough of rock writers (he doesn't worry about such things as "fact-checking" or "primary sources"), but this Stones book was a fun and quick read on a short vacation a few years back. If you like Hammer of the Gods, you should enjoy this one too.

Now on to random titles:

Carnegie, Peter Krass: If you are a lover of history and the big, beefy, earth-moving characters that shaped much of it, get this tome. A massive but amazingly readable and enjoyable undertaking.

A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca, Andr?s Res?ndez: I love this kind of books. The subtitle says it all: "The extraordinary tale of a shipwrecked Spaniard who walked across America in the 16th century." Now THAT is what I call a real story!

Oil!, Upton Sinclair: Early 20th-century Southern California and its oil! Sinclair was the best at throwing the big interests under the bus way back when this type of thing was yet fashionable. Read EVERYTHING by Upton Sinclair.

The White Spider, Heinrich Harrer: Brad Pitt portrayed Heimlich when his story stayed in Tibet (Seven Years in Tibet). Did you know that this amazing man (Harrer, not Pitt, ladies) took part in the first successful climb of the north face of the Eiger in 1938? This book leaves one gasping.

Some recent books that I have added to my read list:

The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
Vineland, Thomas Pynchon
Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
Ishiguro was recommended to me as "the best writer alive." The person who pointed me in this direction also shares my love of Cormac McCarthy. Stark and sparse words on an often brutal human condition.

What say you? Input or further recommendations that you'd like to share with the rest of us? Criticisms of my list (as if)? Please chime in, you lofty readers of this column; this should be rather good!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/11/upton_sinclair_thomas_pynchon.php

Traveling Leaves No Cure for the Aching Heart

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Nov. 25 2010

I have to travel to make my money. It has been that way ever since I was about 20 or so. Traveling is fine and dandy when and if you don't have a family and dumb dogs. But these days, I have these added parameters to work within.

I just arrived back in Seattle from another trip to Europe. For those of you who read this space regularly, you will remember that I was JUST there a couple of weeks ago. I try to see friends while I am there on business--friends who know my wife and girls, friends who can serve as a sort of touchstone.

I went to dinner in London last Friday with my friend who has done one hell of a good job raising three girls by himself. The girls, ages 9, 10, and 12, do all the things girls that age are supposed to do (ballet, flute lessons, gymnastics, etc.). My friend Ray has had to do this and figure this out all on his own, and it is always a joy to spend a few hours with him and his wonderful girls.

At the restaurant was a loud group of drunken late-20-somethings. The women in this group were questionably dressed, I suppose (my back was to them, so I wasn't privy at first). One of Ray's little girls suddenly said in her cute little-girl English accent, "Daddy! That lady's top is broken!" Yes, my friend Ray is raising little angels.

It made me miss mine.

Life is good for me, I do realize. I'm not one to piss and moan, and my family will rarely (if ever) be resentful for my being gone. They know that I am hard enough on myself about it. Life for me, more often than not, revolves around the logistics of not being gone for more than six days at a time . . . and that is why I travel back and forth so much, so that I am not gone ALL the time.

There should be some sort of frequent-flyer pass that a guy like me can use for TSA and U.S. Customs. I know the whole drill by rote, for Christ's sake. My computer is out, my shoes are off, my liquids are in a Ziploc in a tray, and STILL they insist on barking their orders to me. Don't they know I am just trying to get home to my girls? And for Customs: Do you REALLY think that a guy who looks like me, or like the punk-rock guy you also pulled out of line, would be the people who are going to attempt to smuggle drugs or whatever? I'd probably dress down a bit.

Blabbermouth just announced that LOADED has announced that we have a title for our new record (The Soundtrack). I guess it's official now.

We have been filming odd bits and pieces and vignettes for a film to coincide with the release of this record (hence its title). Reading the title, however, on Blabbermouth this morning, I was worried how it may be conceived by others. Sort of like, "Oh, really? The Soundtrack, huh? Well, that won't be MY soundtrack, 'cause I think you guys SUCK!" or some such reaction. But literally, it is just that, the soundtrack for the movie . . . I digress.

No, my point to the traveling part above is that this Thanksgiving, as with every one I've taken part in since Susan and I have had our kids, is about being thankful for the health and happiness that permeates our little family. I would travel five times as far as I did yesterday, and withstand all that TSA could muster, if the end result was me being back with my McKagans.

I would like to send a special Thanksgiving shout-out to my editor, Chris Kornelis, and his wife to welcome their first child. Life will get pretty damn good for you now, my friend.

And to you, my readers . . . and my friends now, as a result of this column. Whether you live here in the States or not, Happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully the things in your life that you hold dear will be more brightly illuminated and become warmer as the days in your life progress.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/11/traveling_leaves_no_cure_for_t.php

Questions & Answers on Adversity, Buddhism, and Your Kid's First Bass

By Duff McKagan

Thu., Dec. 2 2010 @ 12:12PM

We are going to try something new here this week. You've sent in your questions, and I've done my very best to answer them in a satisfactory fashion. Just so you all know, though, my two daughters are convinced that I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. You have been forewarned!
Q: I just picked up a junior bass for my 7-year-old for Christmas. Any suggestions to help the little guy get started in the right direction? --Tommy Blackburn, Ekron, Kentucky

Duff: When I was a kid, I was fortunate that there was a bit of peer and sibling pressure to at least play SOME sort of musical instrument. But from a young age--and what made a HUGE difference--was that there was music in my house all the time, and I was really, really into the mystery of the whole thing . . . and trying to unlock it.

With your little guy, I think that it is really important that he learns what he wants to learn. That is to say, don't force it. Find him a teacher who will inspire him to learn the music that he wants to, rather than a set-in-stone lesson. Music is an art that has many varied avenues of entry.

Q: What is the best book you have read about overcoming adversity? Who is your favorite author? Or what book inspired something inside you? --Dionne

Duff: This is a subject that reminds me of another question that I'm asked in interviews from time to time: "What are your top 10 favorite records of all time?" I always say 10 different records every time, and kick myself for not including such-and-such a record, etc.

So, my answer, as of this writing, for a book about overcoming would be Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. This book really set a high-water mark for me as far as what human beings could endure physically and mentally . . . and just how heroic we can be when put to the task.

I have so many favorite authors. I love the dark style and cadence of people like Ernest Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy. I love the descriptive narrative of Stephen Ambrose, Joe Simpson, Krakauer. For a sweeping story of industry, I will take Upton Sinclair. For a story of the street? Iceberg Slim. I could go on for days . . .

Q: How are you not deaf (or have hearing damage) after all those years of rock and roll? --Allysha, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Duff: What?

Q: Have you have read any philosophical or, like, Buddhist or spiritual literature? You seem, at least from what I've read of your column, very comfortable in your skin, and you put your focus on important things, like family and well-being in general. Or is it just wisdom that comes when you've lived your "wild years"? --Juha Aatola, Finland

Duff: It is all a serious "work-in-progress" situation for me. I am very fortunate to have had some amazing teachers, either currently or involved in my life thus far. My mom, for sure, comes in at the top of that list.

Martial arts were a huge part of my first couple of years of sobriety, and my Ukidokan teachings and sensei remain a fulcrum which my whole being swings upon.

I think for me also, being in group situations (a big family and rock bands) has really helped me to discern that while, yes, I think I am rather damn kick-ass sometimes, I realize that life and its inhabitants do not revolve around me!

And truthfully, a huge part of my self-discovery has been in my writing of words over the last couple of years. In writing--especially writing about my own life publicly--I have had to tear apart where and what MY part in all of this mess has actually been. Very humbling shit for me.

I suppose that I am happy that at least I come off as being comfortable in my own skin. More and more these days, I try to just not react to things that can set me off. I used to have a pretty short fuse, but martial arts and sobriety have chilled me. But comfortable with myself? Not even anywhere close!
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2 ? s.php#more

Zeppelin or Sabbath? Well, That All Depends When You're Asking

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Dec. 9 2010

I had such a good time last week with some of your questions that I thought I'd give it another shot. Besides, there appears to be an endless amount of curiosity as to what my opinion might be on a wide variety of topics. Girls? Rock? Bass? Marriage? I'll answer a few more questions through the week.

Let's get started:

Q: Zeppelin or Sabbath, and why?
--Pete, New York City

Duff: If you are asking me now, I wouldn't be able to choose an outright winner or loser. For me, as a bass player, and a recent serious student of my craft, I would have to lean toward Zeppelin and John Paul Jones (I've been geeking out to bass lately, something I had NEVER done before).

In Seattle, and when I was a youngster, there was a serious divide within the Sabbath/Zeppelin debate. If you were from outside the city, it was Sabbath, and for us relative urbanites, it was ALL about Zeppelin.

We seemed too smarty-pants for them. They seemed too butt-rock for us. Yes, but we were all young and dumb and full of cocksureness. The truth is these bands are just so damn different that there IS no way to really compare or contrast them. Actually, you can't compare ANY other band to these two fucking behemoths.

Q: What happened with Jane's Addiction?
--T

Duff: I do believe that I have answered this one somewhere out there in an interview. But to be sure, I will touch on it again.

Last year at about this time, I was asked by Perry if I wouldn't want to come in and lend a hand in the writing of a new Jane's record. I was and AM indeed honored.

We started that process, and the rumors started to swirl, ebb, and flow to the MAX! I was just trying to keep my head down the whole time and do that band as much service as I could. They are great and gentle men, all of them. A nicer group of dudes would be hard to find.

Alas, the time came for me to depart and get back to my thing, which is Loaded all the time, writing my book, developing a new business, and the ever-present hunt for a VR singer. The press blew the whole thing out of proportion to begin with, and in the end I was left to try and explain my way out of a situation that was just so simple. Creative guys . . . getting creative.

Q: Did you ever feel like a woman like Susan was out of your league?
--Jake, Ukiah, CA

Duff: Yep! And I still do.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/12/zeppelin_or_sabbath_well_that.php

Question for Duff: Business Considerations Aside, Is Appetite Better On CD or Vinyl?

By Duff McKagan, Mon., Dec. 13 2010

Q: I recently received a primo condition copy of (Guns N' Roses') Appetite For Destruction on vinyl that I bought from some serious collector dude in Kentucky who is selling all his wax and moving to a music server. He has his reasons, but I am sad for him...
It's been awhile since I've heard this album in it's analogue form; through a diamond and some high powered vintage era stereo-wars kit, and it sounds so fucking awesome it's making my pubic hairs stand on end. Which makes me wonder: What's your take on the analogue vs. digital debate? Do you have a preference when it comes to the formats? I'm not talking about what you have to do to sell music these days -- I'm asking if you have a preference when it comes to sitting down for some serious listening.

For yucks, I just A/B'd the two versions through the same system and I gotta tell you that to my admittedly Lizzy-chromed ear canals, the vinyl has an almost 3-D quality and sonic signature that is absent in my compact disc version. The vinyl sounds better and it's not even close.

Am I just showing my age here being ancient and cranky about the superiority of the old ways, or is there something to be said for that chunky old analogue sound? -- El Hugo

Duff: Yeah, well, in a whole shit-ton of ways, digital music fucking killed my business.

Back when CD's first came out, I had just started making real money in GNR. I had the best turntable and amps and speakers that money could buy, and I remember Slash and I going to a CD store on Ventura Blvd. to buys some CDs and a couple of CD players. This store had everything, and I remember just starting from 'A' and ending at 'Z', filling up a whole shopping cart while basically re-stocking everything I had on vinyl.

It seemed like this was cutting edge shit, and that I was at the forefront of the technology...until I got home and realized it ALL sounded like shit compared to my vinyl. Anyone who says different, must just be so used to every bit of a digital track being used up, that actual 'space' in a song, must sound weird and maybe archaic.

But back then, we didn't realize that this was just a game being played by the major labels to do what Slash and I had fell hook, line, and sinker for; re-buying ALL of their product! Multiply that by everyone on this planet, and you are talking about trillions of dollars! What the major label powers were too short-sighted and greedy to realize is that home computers were becoming more and more popular, and that digital bits and pieces could be sent back and forth between users.

The artist is STILL the one paying the ultimate price. With gas prices up so high, no one selling CDs, and lower ticket prices EVERYWHERE, it will be a miracle to have any other choice but seeing local bands for awhile. In Seattle, though, that ain't such a bad thing!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/12/question_for_duff_business_con.php

Found a couple more questions/answers for those of you are interested. Seattle Weekly says he'll be back to his regular column next week.

Q: I've been trying to get our bass player to get that 'Duff' sound, but it is pretty tough. What amp settings do you use? -- Layo

Duff: Ah, you thought could try and slip me up on this one to answer just like that?! I am a cagey warrior used to the Kung Fu that you thus deploy. And the answer is? Trade secret, biotch! Good luck!

Tue., Dec. 14 2010 @ 9:46AM
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/12/question_for_duff_what_do_i_do.php

Q: My girlfriend texted me last Monday and said that she needed a week of space, meaning we can't see or talk to each other for a week because she wants to be sure with herself. I'm so devastated I can't even concentrate on work. What should I do to make it up to her and save our relationship? --Russell, Manila, Philippines

Duff: I am maybe jumping at the assumption that this may be your first experience in true-love heartache. Listen, man, if she needs a week break, chances are that things are over and done with.

I am not trying to bring you down. No, oddly, these are the experiences that we must all go through to build true character and to finally put us in those places where we will one day find that "one" . . . or, at least one of the ones.

Believe in yourself. Don't hang onto this for too long. Keep your chin up, and just simply act as if everything is OK right now. I have found from experience that acting as if it is has gotten me through many a tight spot. Best of luck to you, and we've all got your back here in this column, my man!

Fri., Dec. 10 2010 @ 7:43AM
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/12/a_one-week_break_is_never_a_go.php

Question for Duff: When Are You Going to Tell Your Daughters About, Um ... Everything?

By Duff McKagan, Mon., Dec. 20 2010

Q: Can I pass that Q to you regarding the fact that your daughters are now on the verge of saying farewell to their childhood and at the gateways of starting to party? I know it's a tough question and I mean no disrespect, but I'm a father, too, and I get a chill down my spine whenever I put myself in the shoes of our RNR heroes having to deal with something like that. -- David

Duff: Well David, My kids ARE definitely now at the age where my past exploits in the 'darkness' are and will be talked about more and more in my house. But the thing that I have found that is very important for all topics with my kids, is the fact that we do actually talk about them (or at least, I try to approach them with certain ones).

Certain things will have come up already. When Grace was in the 3rd grade, she asked me why I didn't drink wine when everyone else did at dinner or 'grown-up' parties. I didn't think at that point that she was old enough to notice these types of things-and I took this as a wake-up call that my young kids are very astute. I think most young kids are.

Grace's query gave me an awesome and early opportunity to tell her about my past problems with alcohol and drugs. I told her these things in a way that did not scare her, but simply made her realize that these things were a bad thing for a guy like me. We have more recently hit on the topic that my alcoholism and addiction problems could very well be a family trait and that it is something that she and I should watch out for when she gets older. She knows very well about my past, and more than likely looks at those old photos of me as an embarrassment. I hope she does, anyway.

To add to all of this, and a dilemma that I am now facing, is the book that I am just now finishing. It is a story of redemption in the end, but it does tell my whole story-thorns, pimples, blood, puke, and all. I have told my kids of my past and they have seen the pictures and read the stories. That is all that I can do for now. Well no, there IS one other big thing I can do; and that is to be a loving and trustful Dad.

Hell, I can't hide too much can I? As I write this missive, I am recuperating from a surgery to fix my scarred sinuses from 17 year-old cocaine abuse! My MRI pictures of the battle in my cranium is enough to scare ANY kid straight!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/12/question_for_duff_when_are_you.php#more

The 10 Things On My List: Thanks, Requests, and Christmas Wishes

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Dec. 23 2010

Yes, last week was pretty damn interesting if you were me. At long last, I had surgery to repair my torn and damaged sinuses left non-functional after a long-ago bout with the cocaine. From sometime in 1989 until about November 1993, I snorted perhaps my body weight in varying degrees of good, bad, and straight-up shitty blow. I don't recommend this to any of you young readers. I was NOT such a smart 20-something. Nope, just an ordinary drug-addict.
I remember trying to glamorize all my drug and alcohol use back then. I would romanticize my life and my struggle as something noble and just. I was an ARTIST, maaan! I NEEDED to dull myself to certain inputs or else my art would suffer. Yep, before I knew it, I was strung-out and terrified. Crappy stuff.

Someone asked me about this stuff a while back, and "what are your kids gonna say when they start to party?" Some people ask me these things in an almost bellicose way, as if suffering through my kids' drug-abuse issues would be just payback for what I have done to myself. Hopefully, I was a big enough idiot in my time that I have filled the dumb-ass quota for my whole family. God, I hope so.

On another note, but still somewhat on-topic, I just got back from seeing The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale--a true story about boxer Micky Ward and his once-promising older brother who got addicted to crack in the mid-'80s. Christian Bale just fucking nailed the tics and physical traits of a crack guy, and I swear he must have studied an old drummer of mine, Steven Adler, for this part. I love Steven, so watching this portrayal reminded me of the heartbreak that I felt back then.

All right then, so it is Christmas, and most of you know that I am the It's a Wonderful Life-Is-My-Favorite-Movie-Ever guy. If you didn't know, well, now the rest of you do. In the "flavor" and mood of that particular film, I would now like to ask for some things, and give some thanks, for Christmas, my favorite time of year.

1. Please let this surgery fix the problems that my cocaine abuse has brought upon me. I don't want to go through another one of those procedures, 'cause that shit hurt!

2. Thanks for not letting me get strung out on the Oxys afterwards. That would have sucked pretty good.

3. I would like to give a shout-out and nod to those of you still suffering from active addiction at this moment. If you are reading this now, just know that things will get better if you really want to quit. If you think that you are incapable of stopping, please don't. I was that guy, the one whom everyone--including myself--had pegged as the one who wouldn't survive. If I can, then you can too.

4. Santa, please give my dog Buckley his testicles back. I need another dude in my household desperately!

5. Create some jobs this next year. For those families with children stuck without a home because of this recession, may you find a helping hand.

6. Bring our soldiers home!

7. Let Matt Hasselbeck either find his way over these next few weeks, or give us Seahawks fans something positive to live with this off-season.

8. Let Loaded reign supreme and dominate the planet in this year to come!

9. May all the readers of this column enjoy good health and immeasurable happiness this next year.

10. Thank you for letting me be born into this McKagan family. Our family Christmas parties are the best, loudest, funnest, and biggest celebrations of this type in Western Washington. I am so very grateful to witness now what I could have very well not been around for at all.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/12/the_10_things_on_my_list_thank.php

Question for Duff: Is It OK to Join a Band For the Experience, Not the Music?

Tue., Dec. 28 2010 @ 9:18AM

Q: I've been playing guitar forever. I've always wanted to play in a rock band that traveled and was fun to play music in. A few friends of mine are in a band up in Sacramento and they've been lucky enough to have gone on three or four U.S. tours. Now they've asked me to join. It seems like a great opportunity for me to rock and gain some experience. It seems like the universe gave me what I was asking for, right?
Well, the thing is I don't really care much for the style of music. The guys are rad, it's fun to jam, and they have a pro attitude as a band, and as friends. I would feel bad joining the band just to gain some experience and play/tour when my heart isn't stoked on the music. Do you feel that would be wrong to join a band just to play and tour, just to gain experience?

I know first and for most, fun comes first in playing music, but I guess I feel a little guilty and shitty if I did that. Then again, it could be a door to something better? Have you ever had that dilemma when playing in bands?--Brent

Duff: You should do the tour first, and THEN comment on whether this it is a 'universe-gave-me-what-I-asked-for' thing or not! Have fun with your friends, and if nothing else, you will gain experience.

I played in a band when I first moved to Hollywood that I wasn't too stoked on, but they were playing gigs all of the time, and I did it to just simply meet people in a town where I knew no one. No harm done.

Question for Duff: What's Your Petting Policy?

Mon., Dec. 27 2010 @ 9:00AM

Q: You think it's OK to pet on a first date? -- K

Duff: I think that probably all depends on where you are at in your life. If you want something fun and sex-filled from the get-go, then shit yes. But if you are wanting something that may have some staying power (pun intended), maybe hold off on the fast moves and let the anticipation build.

All from Seattle Weekly Reverb

Can't I Just Resolve to Give Up Those Sales Calls and Junk Email In 2011?

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Dec. 30 2010

I have never been real big on New Year's resolutions--maybe because in my "sober life" I have strived for everything in moderation (food, buying too much material crap, or whatever). It goes without saying that I no longer have booze and drugs to swear off. But there are one or two things I am finally going to rectify after the first of the year . . . the things that perhaps plague us all: junk e-mail and sales calls.

I don't have the most public of phone numbers, but I have tried to hang onto the same cell number for quite some time now. I suppose I must have used it at some point when I bought something, because these days--and every business day--I get sales calls at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. You know the ones . . . a robotic voice comes on and says "This call is intended for MICHAEL MCKAGAN. If this is not MICHAEL MCKAGAN, please disregard." I emphasize the "Michael McKagan" part because that is the part of the sentence where the robotic voice inexplicably gets somehow more robotic.

The e-mails, on the other hand, are indeed from things that I have over the years used, or people I have given my e-mail to. I would think that the nursery school Grace went to some NINE YEARS AGO! would get the fact that Grace and I would no longer be interested in the different programs they offer. Sorry, I guess that is just me using common sense.

Also, although I am a Seattle resident, I DO spend a lot of my time in L.A., and have given my e-mail address to a few managers and tour managers and promoters and what-not. What I have gotten in return from some of these sorts (but not all of them, by any means), is a maddening cavalcade of invites to this "club opening" or that "birthday bash" for still more people who I have no idea who they might be. I'm not trying to paint myself as some sort of fancy-pants scenester, and I am glad that people think I am somehow "cool" enough to invite to some of these events. I just still think it is a little gauche to just use my e-mail for this onslaught without asking me if it is OK first.

I have learned not to give out my e-mail address when I go to stores, though. That is a whole other conundrum in itself. I know that neither of these two above-mentioned things are all that bad in the whole scope of things--and they are indeed not--but I have made a promise to myself to "unsubscribe" to the sales e-mails, send a note back to the club promoters to take me off the list (probably a D list, anyway), and call back these 800 numbers and have a supervisor take me off the call list!

My Blackberry is basically attached to my hip, and with all the international traveling I do, just think of the money I'll save from these international text-charges that I accrue because of the e-pimping that is all up in my grill. In the old days, I would have said to you all "Just think how many cocktails I could've bought with that dough." These days, however, I suppose it is more like "Just look at how many more nerdy books I can buy!"

God, how things have changed.

Happy New Year's, All!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/12/cant_i_just_resolve_to_give_up.php

What You Missed if You Missed the Last Three Decades

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jan. 6 2011

I finally got a chance last week to meet and hang out with The Long Winters guru and fellow Seattle Weekly columnist John Roderick. To be honest, I was a little bit nervous when first seeing John; he seems to be the smartest guy in the room, and intellectualism has at times fed into people also being smart-ASSES to me. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe I am just an easy butt for a joke. But in my case, at least, last week, he was also the NICEST guy in the room, and he shares my low and classless taste in humor. Cool dude.

I started a new job this week as a weekly columnist for ESPN.com. I will for sure be staying here at SW on Thursdays, but I am excited to write about my other passion--sports. I tried it a time or two here at SW, but it seemed to leave a lot of people just kind of scratching their heads ("Why is the rock/book guy writing about the NBA?").

Sometimes my interests and the Seattle Weekly's do not mix. Shit, I feel very lucky to be writing now for TWO prestigious online ports. That is, of course, until ESPN catches on that I am truly just a passenger, and not any sort of a real "journalist" per se.

A story on CNN caught my interest this morning. Cornelius Dupree Jr., a Texas man who has sat in prison since 1979--wrongly accused for rape and robbery--was just freed on DNA proof that overturned his conviction. Just think of that for a minute: 32 YEARS IN PRISON FOR A CRIME THAT YOU DIDN'T DO! Just think about it:

1. Jimmy Carter was still the President of the United States (he won the election with the help, for the first time in U.S. history, of a surging Southern Evangelical voter base. That is why, boys and girls, every President since then has kowtowed so much to the Evangelical Church. They possess VOTES.)
2. 1979 is the year Prince recorded his self-titled record. That's four whole records BEFORE Purple Rain.
3. In 1979, Michael Jackson was still recording with the Jacksons (formerly the Jackson 5).
4. Led Zeppelin was still a touring band with all its original members.
5. AC/DC still had Bon Scott.
6. An actor from California named Ronald Reagan was laughably running for President of the United States.
7. The Clash did their first tour of the U.S.
8. I saw The Clash on their first U.S. tour.
9. U2 were still an Irish pub band.
10. Mot?rhead were making Ace of Spades.
11. Metallica was not a band yet.
12. "Ant" music and the "New Romantic" era in music were just being born in the UK.
13. Home computers were still about 14 years away.
14. The compact disc was still 10 years away.
15. Artists and bands were still actually selling records (can you smell my bitterness about that whole thing yet, AR?)
16. The Seattle Seahawks were only a 2-year-old NFL team. The cagey QB/receiver team of "Zorn to Largent" was in its infancy.
17. My wife was 9 years old.
18. I was 15 years old.
19. Kinky.
20. Stop thinking about that, you sick bastards.
21. KCMU was cool then. too.
22. My editor here at the Weekly wasn't even born.
23. I was in the Fastbacks.
24. Most of you reading this were probably not even born.
25. "Y.M.C.A.," "Le Freak," "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?", and "Reunited" were all hits that year.

Cornelius Dupree Jr., you are still a relative youngster at 51. I wish you a long life now in freedom. You deserve it and more.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/01/what_you_missed_if_you_missed.php

Here Are Some History Books That Won't Put You to Sleep, I Promise

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jan. 13 2011

It may strike some as odd that I am not this week writing about my beloved Seahawks' huge playoff win last Saturday. If I didn't now also have an actual column solely dedicated to sports on ESPN.com, then yes, right here and right now, I would've spilt forth about the victory. You can read that, over there.
And so, for here at the Weekly this fine Thursday, I will get back to a place that we are somewhat all familiar with--books (and to a more direct point, MY reviews/previews of said books).

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Laura Hillenbrand: I actually just finished this book last night, and it's maybe one of the best war stories I have ever read. This true story follows the young life of celebrated distance-runner Louis Zamperini. After Louie had competed in the 1500-meter race in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, many experts picked him to set a world record in the upcoming 1940 Olympics in Tokyo. The thing is, Japan started invading places all over Asia, and the Olympics were moved to Helsinki, Finland. Of course, by 1940, Germany was doing a whole ton of invading itself, and the Olympics were cancelled altogether.

Zamperini, crestfallen but still very much hopeful about the 1944 Olympics, joined the U.S. Air Force to sort of just have something to do until all this war stuff was over . . . then Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Louie suddenly found himself as a bomber in a B-24 Liberator, until his plane blew its engines and ran headlong into the Pacific Ocean.

If 48 days on a life raft, sharks all the time, a Japanese prison camp, brutal guards, starvation, freezing cold, blistering heat, alcoholism, loss of hope, and the redemption of a life thought lost are things that interest you--all written in a lyrical and easy style--then this book is definitely for you. Two big thumbs up from me.

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro: I know there are some pretty pointed opinions when it comes to this author and this book. I noticed some heated comments when I simply announced that I was going to read Kazuo. It seems authors like Ishiguro and Cormac McCarthy are the type either people love or hate.

Never Let Me Go, like McCarthy's The Road, is not so much about the story itself, but how it is told, the relationship between characters, and the usage and turns of phrase. I like that kind of stuff, myself. McCarthy's writing often leaves me stunned and emotional.

But this is a book review of Never Let Me Go. If you like to go to dark places, give this book a try. If you like butterflies, unicorns, and rainbows, stay far, far away.

Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, Michael B. Oren: If you are interested in America's involvement in the Middle East--the whos, whys, and how-the-hells--then this book is a great all-in companion to the writings of Thomas Friedman or Steve Coll. Oren is as good as David McCullough when it comes to making nonfiction read like an epic, page-turning novel.

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, Thomas Friedman: Don't let the nonfiction-ness of this book's title throw you off. The World Is Flat is, like all Friedman's books and columns, immensely readable, informative, well-rounded (for a non-primary source especially), and just plain outstanding. If you want to get yourself informed on what is up with globalization and digitalization topics, get you some of this book.

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Steve Coll: Al-Qaeda, counterterrorism, government fuck-ups, and all the rest. Ghost Wars won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, and although some of you are dubious of book awards, when it comes to nonfiction, the Pulitzer stamp has for me been indicative of just how much damn jaw-dropping research was done. I'm sure that Coll must have had a ton of help in sorting through the mind-numbing amount of documents and whatnot that he used to write this book. The question is just how he made it all so goddamn readable. A MUST-read.

On deck:

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, Nathaniel Fick: Loaded guitar player, Scrabble champion, book enthusiast, and ex-U.S. Marine Mike Squires recommended this book to me. He was the one who turned me into a Cormac McCarthy freak, too. I trust Squires' judgment. I'll let you all know about this one next time we do this.

What have you all been reading? GO HAWKS!!!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/01/here_are_some_history_books_th.php

Without Lemmy and Motorhead, There Wouldn't Be Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, or Metallica. Period.

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jan. 20 2011

I was fairly excited last Thursday to be able to attend the Los Angeles screening of the new Motorhead/Lemmy rockumentary, Lemmy: 49% Motherfucker, 51% Son of a Bitch. I only say "fairly" excited because it has been my experience that often when I see all that there is to see about an important or influential person in my life, I wish not to have known all there was to know. Lemmy's movie did the opposite. It kicked fucking ass AND made me think of what a bad, bad man Lemmy is in real life.
When I was a youngster and Motorhead's Ace of Spades came out, all of us in the Seattle punk-rock scene instantly recognized the weight of the band and Lemmy Kilmister, its bassist, singer, and songwriter. They embodied all that was good and great about rock and roll: snarling vocals and to-the-point lyrics. Drummer Phil "Filthy Animal" Taylor pounded the FUCK out of the drums; and "Fast" Eddie Clarke complemented it all with his no-nonsense and very LOUD guitar playing. Motorhead seemed always more punk than metal, because of the fact that they were always in on the joke, whereas other metal bands seemed to take it all much too seriously back then.

When I moved down to L.A. in 1984, it was the influence of guys like Lemmy, Phil Lynott, and The Clash's Paul Simonon that steered me to choose bass, back when I was still a somewhat able drummer and guitar player. I was going to Hollywood to sort of "invent" myself, and I chose bass playing as the coolest of the rock-instrument triumvirate because, hell, it was the baddest choice back then (to me at least).

And it wasn't just my choice of playing bass that Lemmy and Motorhead influenced. Dare I say that without Motorhead, there would have been no Metallica, GN'R, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, NIN, or everything between and after. Yeah, they mean that much.

There is a moment in the documentary where Dave Grohl states very eloquently what Motorhead means to him and the rest of us in the audience. To paraphrase, Grohl talks about the "human-ness" of Lemmy. Boils and all, Lemmy lets us know that you don't have to be perfect and beautiful and polished to a shine to succeed in this life. Go see the movie to get the full poignancy of Dave's quote.

Motorhead makes me both exceedingly happy and somehow ashamed. The happy part is obvious in that Motorhead helps us all to exorcise some demons through the art form of balls-out rock and roll. But also, watching the movie and seeing Lemmy progress throughout the film, it dawns on me that this guy has always just stuck to his guns and never bit in to a trend or a new technology recording-wise. Most of us just sort of naturally change with the times; our style of dress, our take on life and love, the bars we go to and all. Lemmy has changed nothing, bringing to the fore the fact that he just had it right from the beginning.

I am 46, and my oldest brother Jon is 20 years older. Jon was born during WWII, and served himself during the "police action" BEFORE VIETNAM WAS CALLED A WAR! He and I are a full generation apart. I revel in stories he tells me about the '50s or '60s or whatever. My point to this and how it applies to this column is that Lemmy is the exact age of my brother Jon. 66.

Lemmy has lived so much longer than the rest of us, and lived HARD. He has earned every right to preach down to the rest of us, but he never has. He has also earned the right and enough money to retire gracefully if he wished, but he doesn't wish it. "What else would I do?" he says in the movie.

If you are a young musician going to see this film, watch and learn and pay attention. Lemmy is the real deal, as if my opinion makes any difference to guys like this. And for musicians like me, who have been around for a while: Sit back and enjoy and take inspiration from a guy who is out there still kicking ass harder than any of us could, even when we were young enough to think we could take on a whole nation of bad-asses.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/01/without_lemmy_and_motorhead_th.php#more

Tell Him/Her/Them About It While You Can

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jan. 27 2011

Many of you already know that I have been writing a book over the past year or more. Well, this week I got back a first and very rough edit, and I have, for the first time, sat down and read the whole thing.

Here's the deal: In writing so much about my own life, I have found so many places where for so long I have placed blame on others for this failure or that shortcoming. It's not like I haven't worked on resentment in my sober life, because I really have. Or so I thought.

Both of my parents passed away within the past 10 years. My mom was a saint in my eyes, and raised us eight McKagan kids with the courage of the whole Allied Forces in WWII. I think she knew how much I loved her and appreciated all her lessons shared, but did I tell her all this when she was still alive? Surely not like I would now.

It is common for all human beings to experience a traumatizing childhood event. I think when we are kids we have these idealized models of what life should be like and what grown-ups should adhere to. In my case, my own father didn't live up to my idealized "father-figure" model, and I ended up resenting him for the rest of his life.

To sort of throw my dad under the bus now that he isn't here to defend himself is not my intent. There were many things he did in my life that were amazing and righteous. We just didn't have a real knack for communicating, especially when I witnessed first-hand my parents' marriage falling apart. When they divorced, I placed the blame squarely on my dad's shoulders and never looked back.

After I got sober, my wife Susan sort of forced me into having a relationship with my dad again. We had a new daughter, and Susan asked me to try and forgive my Pop so that Grace (and then Mae) could have a grandpa around in Seattle. I'm glad that Susan did this.

I didn't go all the way, though, with my dad. I didn't have the guts or fortitude to address with him alone the things I address in my writing and forgive him for wholeheartedly. Sadly, it's just too damn late.

If any of you have the inclination, or are battling old resentments, may I suggest you write them down and then write about your part in these events that have caused said resentment. It may just do a whole lot of healing. Do this before it's too late.

May I also suggest saying to those you hold near and dear how much they may have changed your life for the better. For those people who may have caused you harm, the only healthy solution there may be just to examine your part in these events. Try to be honest with yourself to a fault. We hate to see in ourselves the things that we judge to be poor character traits in others. So when self-honesty starts to hurt and become really, really uncomfortable, that is when you know you are being thorough.

I feel like I am having a meeting at a sober place right now, so I will stop with this line of thought. I'm just trying to pass on some things I have learned over the past year. Some of you have paid forward with sage words to me in the comments section, and I am only trying to return the favor.

In being a parent myself now for a 10- and 13 year-old, I can sort of see through their eyes their vision of some of my own shortcomings. I get it. I was there once.

But these days, I open my mouth and say how I feel. I tell my girls that they are safe with me, or that they make being a dad an easy thing. They think this stuff is all way too damn corny and question why I am saying these things. I just tell them to store those things away and save them for a day when my goofy words may mean something.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/01/tell_himherthem_about_it_befor.php

This Week in Loaded: Three New Songs, One New Movie, and Plenty of Flirting With Lemmy, ZZ Top, and Sean Kinney

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Feb. 3 2011

Last week, we touched on some heavy issues concerning life, loss, and the general hurdles that life puts in front of all of us. Speaking for myself, it was good to get it out of my system. I hope it was for all of you who commented, too. It's time now to move on. It is Loaded time, after all.
After a sort of long downtime of not much public activity with my band Loaded, things are finally starting to go public.

On Tuesday, three of our new songs and the cover-art from our upcoming record, The Taking, were leaked on BLABBERMOUTH. A few years ago, digital streams as leaks spelled doom for a band's future record sales; now they are looked at as almost a good thing, something that can get a prospective audience pumped and talking about the upcoming release of the full-length. It is almost like it is free advertising, like "Here, check out some of THIS. It is so good and precious, that someone figured out how to hack into the label's mainframe computer and unleash this new kick-ass music." Hey, for me, and everything that I have seen over the years in this business, who cares? As long as people are talking.

I'm on a flight right now back up to Seattle where we are going to do a few more segments of "RADIO LOADED" on KISW. Sean Kinney will be joining in again . . . and who knows? Maybe he and I will actually one day have a radio hour of our own--an everyday thing. But that would be way off in the future.

Loaded is making a movie, too. What? A film? Some people who know about it think that perhaps somehow we have suddenly become "actors," and hence, the film will be a shoddy attempt at scripted dialogue. Really, it is nothing like that.

I tried acting one time back in the late '90s. I got a call from a show called Sliders starring Jerry O'Connell on the Sci-Fi Channel. They needed a punk-rock vampire who could play drums (I sort of do that), who could go around killing people, and generally be a badass. Roger Daltrey had been the guest star the week before, so I thought, "Fuck it! Why not?" I was newly sober and open to try anything new at least once for the life-experience factor. I was trying to face fears. There were a bunch of speaking lines, and, long story short, I sucked (pun intended).

No, the Loaded movie will be more in line with a very twisted A Hard Day's Night, a movie where the songs on the record did all the "talking," and the band was just trying to make its way through a bunch of insane circumstances to get from point A to point B. If you like male prostitution, killing a child predator, ferries, motorcycles, hang-gliders, bi-planes, and Mary Kay Letourneau, this Loaded flick may just be for you.

Filmmaker and general visionary Jamie Chamberlin is helming this project, and I must say he may be West Seattle's best kept secret, artist-wise.

While Motorhead is in town this Friday at the Showbox, the great Lemmy Kilmister has agreed to play a cameo role in the movie, which I am psyched about.

It is very likely too, that we may be playing some surprise and unannounced acoustic shows around town for the filming: "Flash gigs," if you will.

Rumor has it that we may be recording a song for an upcoming ZZ Top tribute record this weekend too. If it doesn't happen this week, it will happen soon, I am told. Other acts include Queens of the Stone Age, Mastodon, Wolfmother, Stone Sour, and more. Either way, the record should be pretty interesting.

Next week, the band starts gearing up the press machine. Interview after interview after interview. It is actually one of the most rigorous things that I have to do in my professional life. It can get exhausting answering the same question over and over, without seeming like a jerk. I do realize, after all this time, that the interviewer you are talking to currently did not in fact know the questions the last guy asked me. None of them are trying to be repetitive.

All this stuff comes at the exact right time for me personally, as I just got done writing and doing a first full edit of my book. It was 14 months of huge ups and downs for me, to a level I did not expect. I can see why people get ghostwriters. I can get real, real painful and uneasy digging up skeletons and re-examining the whole sludge and effluvia of your wreckage.

So onward and forward we trudge: The fine gentlemen of The Loaded Group. Taking no names and no prisoners. Hide your daughters (and sons?), and sharpen up on your Scrabble game, because ready or not, here we come.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/02/this_week_in_loaded_3_new_song.php

6 Sure-Fire Signs That You're a Seattle Hipster

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Feb. 17 2011

There seems to be a premium these days on a certain avenue and chic-ness of cool, to those young city folk who may very well be the leaders of art and culture. And then of course there are the outwardly visible hipsters who would like to think they are the ones who are really the driving force in art and culture.
Historically speaking, most of those musicians and visual artists who have inspired the rest of us with their original ideas lived the large part of their careers in dark obscurity. The legion of Velvet Underground fans didn't come into form, for example, until David Bowie and his ilk pimped them out. And while Jackson Pollock did enjoy some commercial success while he was still an active artist, it wasn't until the New York art-scene explosion of the 1970s that he become somewhat of a household name. Van Gogh too. Hell, Joy Division weren't widely known until much after even OMD.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest the possibility that your garden-variety hipster could, in the hopes of keeping the cool shtick up, be a little closed-minded to what is actually happening beyond the local record and thrift-clothing store.

OK, but right now, all of you reading this think that when I say "hipster" that I must talking about someone else. Not so fast . . .

You may not like it, but you are, in fact, dangerously close to hipster territory if any of the following apply to you:

1. You say things like "I'm a geek."
2. Your band has more than six members and none of them play a horn.
3. There is an animal in your band name.
4. You follow @JohnRoderick on Twitter.
5. You hang out at Big Mario's five nights a week while loudly proclaiming: "I hate this place."
6. You wear leg warmers in the summer.

Look, I get it. At one point in my youth, I too shunned TV and commercialism, drank tea at coffeehouses, and wore a French beret (the predecessor of the long black beanie worn today). I was so damn cool and left-wing. To be fair, the right wing back then was Reaganism. Not my type of "ism."

In Seattle, obviously, Capitol Hill is central to the area's hipster culture. Down in L.A., the equivalent is an area called Silver Lake. I remember in the mid-'90s that living in Hollywood was seen as pass? and uncool. Silver Lake and Hollywood butt up against each other, and I would overhear back then people claiming they lived in "east" Hollywood (the eastern edge of Hollywood is nearest to Silver Lake). There IS a West Hollywood, but not until the mid-'90s was there ever an "east."

It has been a long, long time since I have been considered a hipster, and with the success of my "rock" band Guns N' Roses, those days would never return in the eyes of those who hold the keys to "Club Hip," but that was and is OK. I had kind of outgrown that need to be outwardly "anti." Besides, I had started to like going to movies, as well as going to the "cinema" to see a "film." I also started to outwardly cheer for my sports teams, as opposed to being anti-jock, wearing black socks with my low-top Converses while wearing shorts, and pretending that I couldn't jump. I'm a sellout.

Anyway, about a year ago I went to see a band at the ultra-hipster Silver Lake Lounge. I like seeing good music and I also like talking to people. (Those of you may have encountered me anywhere probably already know that particular fact about me. I'm not afraid to ask people questions about themselves.) But at the SLL this night, I was kind of left alone. No one wanted to be seen, perhaps, talking to some "rock guy," particularly one not wearing the standard-issue hipster uniform (I should've changed before I went, damn it!). No, I would be alone on this night--left to watch the music without conversation between bands. Oh, well.

But a funny thing happened as I went outside to go to my fancy and non-hipster car: A few of the people who were inside came outside to stop me. They asked if they could take a picture with me . . . but they wanted to do it quick, before any of their other hipster friends could come out and very likely shun them from the aforementioned "Club Hip."

The good news is that there is a surefire way to be broken of the hipster yoke: procreation. Yeah, even most of you who think having kids is never going to happen for you, your time is coming, and your days of being anti-commercialism and not owning a TV may very well be numbered. There is just nothing better that going to Gap Kids, you may find. Also, Dora the Explorer is pretty damn necessary, as well as all of those kid DVDs (if you want to do anything like go to the bathroom or talk on the phone to a friend, you will find the TV of paramount importance). Gnomeo and Juliet is guaranteed to get you teary-eyed. Face it: Baby Bjorns will get in the way of continuing your further development into hipsterism.

There is the issue of the aging hipster, but that's a completely different story.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/02/6_sure-fire_signs_that_youre_a.php

Questions for Duff: Tell Us About Your Dog

By Duff McKagan, Tue., Feb. 22 2011

Q: Hi Duff, I would like to know what your pug's name is. I saw her on Susan's show and she is darling! We have a little Pug named Petunia, and she's so much fun and so sweet!   Thanks,  Suzanna Dwyer 

A: Yeah, well, I feel kind of goofy answering a question about my dog. Truthfully, if it was a big dog, like the ones I used to have, I would probably feel less chick-like in my answer. But OK, here goes....
Our pug's name is Twirlz. When our girls each turned 9, they got a dog for Christmas. Mae wanted a pug. She was so scared of that whirling dervish of a dog for the first few months that--yeah, you guessed it--Susan and I ended up being the feeders, cuddlers, and walkers of Twirlz. On those walks that I did on my own (but of course, in public), I called her . . . Chopper. I couldn't have anyone hearing me say "Go potty, Twirlz" in public, now, could I?

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/02/questions_for_duff.php

Questions for Duff: What Was Your First Time Playing Onstage Completely Sober Like?

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Feb. 24 2011

Q: What was your first time playing onstage completely sober like for you? Were you nervous? What did you do to prepare and keep yourself focused?
Thank you, CJ Gunn, Cleveland, Ohio

P.S.: I am now 21 months sober myself and you are a big reason and influence why, thank you.

A: I was so completely terrified of playing sober, that I actually for a time thought my career was over. Luckily for me, though, the Neurotic Outsiders formed and played a bunch of shows at the Viper. All those guys were sober, and they eased me into it. I was so totally stunned by how much easier and natural it was without the hindrance of an inebriant. I could tap into my animalistic self much better.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/02/questions_for_duff_what_was_yo.php

This week's column is all about AxlReznor!! That's great!

A Meeting of the Minds

By Duff McKagan
Fri, Mar 4 2011 @ 10:15 AM

Many of you readers of this column are also quite active in the comment area. If you are one of those people, then no doubt you are probably keenly aware of a gentleman who posts under the screen name "AxlReznor."

AxlRexnor can at times post difficult retorts that either fly in the face of an article's stated point, or stun you with a certain stark wise-assiness. But for sure, he always posts with thought and intense intelligence. It can be intimidating.

I remember the first time I became aware of this guy. It was on a Velvet Revolver fan forum, at the very beginning of the band's formation. I had never before this gone to any forums, and was caught unawares of the ridicule and insanity that an anonymous public can pile onto a rock band. AxlReznor was there then . . . and his screen name alone intrigued me. His critical posts back then always seemed to hit the mark--whether I liked it or not.

I have since met this dude. Sometime in 2004 or 2005, I was talking with some fans after a show somewhere in England, when a tall fella came up to me and suddenly claimed that he was AxlReznor. I flinched a bit. Judging from all his posts, I wasn't sure if he was quite sane or not. Was he going to pull a knife? Was he going to start slagging me off in public? No. He was just a nice guy--who just happens to like questioning things . . . in general. Not just rock bands, but EVERYTHING.

I am in Birmingham, England, this weekend, and as it happens I am sitting right now having a coffee with one Anthony Hillman (AxlReznor), his fiancee Katy (she posts as "Katy(just me)"), and Sophia (she posts as "Sophia Shaikh"). I have my computer. I thought it would be kind of cool for him and I to try to write this column together. In a way, just "riff" back and forth. So here it goes.

AR: It seems that Duff had the same thoughts as I did when we first met each other in person. After so many years of posting on the Velvet Revolver, sometimes being less than complimentary, I was wondering how my introducing myself would go down. Would he want to kick my ass for some of the things that I'd said?

The first clue that my impressions were completely off was when I had to wait in the queue for far longer than I liked, because Duff was actually taking time to chat with everybody. "What is this?" I was thinking, "he's not supposed to take an interest! He's a rock star! He's supposed to sign whatever is put in front of him and all, but tell them to fuck off and move onto the next person in the conveyor belt!" But no, he genuinely took an interest in chatting with and finding out about his fans. And, I quickly discovered, was more than willing to put up with whatever criticisms that I had thrown his way over the years . . . even the ones where in retrospect I feel I have gone too far.

Over the years since, we have met on various other occasions whenever he was in town with his band Loaded, and have struck up a friendship that seemed completely unlikely a few short years ago. In a shocking twist, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Duff (and everybody else from Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver), because without this music I would have never met the woman who is now my future wife . . . our first contact was arguing with each other on the Velvet Revolver forum, funnily enough.

Duff: OK, now the niceties have been served here, I am going to ask a few pointed questions . . . just to maybe highlight how different our tastes are:

Top 5 movies:

AR's choices--
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
The Matrix
The Dark Knight
Gladiator
Star Wars

Duff's choices--
The Godfather
Citizen Kane
The Wrong Man (Hitchcock)
No Country for Old Men
Scarface

Books:

AR--
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
The Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Watchmen by Alan Moore (it's a comic, but it was in Time's list of the top novels of the 20th century . . . if they say it counts, so do I).

Duff--
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas Friedman
The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

Musical Artists:

AR--
Guns N' Roses
Nine Inch Nails (now we've got the obvious out of the way)
Tool
Pearl Jam
The Dresden Dolls (this will change, but I've been listening to them so much lately I have to mention them).

Duff (at the moment)--
Black Flag
Queen
Prince
Germs
Zeppelin

Top things that bother you:

AR--
Crowds (I often have to duck into a coffee shop in busy shopping centres to stop myself having a panic attack)
People who only listen to rock, and believe anything else is not really music
People who only like music that isn't popular/in the charts (different extremes of the same thing)
Having to not say what I think when a customer is being an unreasonable little bitch
My favourite songs in commercials (yes, I went there)

Duff--
People asking me if VR has a new singer.
People asking me when "GNR is getting back together."
People not knowing to take off their belts and shoes at airport security (shit, my DAUGHTERS know to do that!)
Politicians
Corporate greed

The thing you missed out on, the year you were born:

AR--
I missed the Jackson 5/Michael Jackson Victory Tour.

Duff--
I missed the Bay of Pigs conflict.( by a year)

I forgot to mention, that Anthony is 26, and I, 20 years his senior.

I am a young older-guy.

He? A grumpy, young older-guy!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2 ? s.php#more

Writing a Great Song Is No Longer Enough

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Mar. 17 2011

As I write this, I'm sitting in the exit-row seat of a Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas. Thursday afternoon I will be speaking about the business of music to musicians and perhaps some industry types who are maybe interested in what I have to say, and the angle in which I shall try to deliver it all.

But the real reason for my trip is that I will be playing my first public gig with my band Loaded since December 19, 2009.

The South-by-Southwest Music Festival (SXSW) started in 1987, and used to be primarily ALL about unsigned bands making their way to Austin in hopes of securing a record deal with the many labels who would also flock to that city hoping to catch a rising star. That made a bunch of sense for the music-business model that was in place at the time.

These days, the whole scope and breadth of the commercial side of music has observed a radical sea change. SXSW has changed along with it, and now the focus down there seems to be on news frontiers in digital music, film, and all things Information Age. The subject that I will be speaking on is the ever-changing field which a touring and recording band must adapt to. Most of the younger bands I know about have become mini-geniuses at things like inventory control, Tune-Core, and the price of gasoline in different regions of the country. You have to be smart and have the ability to adapt quickly these days, as WELL as write a great song.

Back in the 1980s, when I got my first major-label deal, I simply couldn't have cared less about how everything worked in a business sense. It all seemed so massive and beyond my scope of knowledge that I just sort of shut down intellectually and turned a blind eye to some really important things. I didn't realize that, as a principal business owner in GNR Inc., I was paying everyone who worked for us, and that they should have provided me with sober and clear-cut reportage of our growing empire. Luckily--and it was only by the fact that we sort of ruled by fear--no one really ripped us off. Sure, we overspent and were not that smart about our personal dough--but in the end, no one who worked for us blatantly stole. They could have.

Our Loaded gig Friday at the Austin Music Hall is a perfect example of how things are changing in my industry. Partnerships with outside sources are now just a personally agreeable way to make touring affordable. Monster Energy Drink is sponsoring the gig, and also sponsoring a bunch of our tour. It was mutually agreeable to me because Monster just wants to be associated with certain rock bands. They don't want you to overtly advertise or publicly pimp their product. It is just more of a word-of-mouth thing that seems to work.

Monster is by no means the only company doing this sort of thing. Chevy and Ford support a lot of country acts. Toyota and Coca-Cola are behind a ton of the larger rock and pop artists. Clothing companies are in on this thing too, and as long as it doesn't rub the fan in some sort of cheesy sales pitch, I certainly don't see the harm for a number of reasons:

1. Artists aren't making the money from records any more. Period.

2. Fans have less money to spend on T-shirts and such these days (hence, artists are not able to use that income to help offset tour costs).

3. I drink the SHIT out of energy drinks, so what the hell. Monster is a PERFECT partner for my band.

AxlReznor (a constant, if not sometimes cynical, commenter to this column) and I got into a fairly lengthy conversation about this stuff when he and I met in the UK a couple of weeks back. He was dead-set against this sort of tour-sponsorship thing. When I started to explain to him how much it costs to tour, and the dwindling revenue streams, he suddenly rose in his seat and partially saw the light. Even the most ardent "anti-corporation" fan like him understands the economics, and suddenly things just seem less offensive and crass. It's not as if I or my band is out there suddenly hawking condoms or jeans.

These are indeed changing times in my industry, and everywhere for that matter. I love to tour and play music live. There are people who still love to see live music as much as they can. More and more, there will be new ways for different industries to marry and help each other. The ultimate winner, I believe, will be the fan.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/03/duff_mckagan_sxsw.php

Try, a Short Story By Duff McKagan

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Mar. 24 2011

I have yet to write a fictional short story for Seattle Weekly. But in my quest for new and interesting ways to engage readers, I thought it would be sort of different to start a story, and see where it leads. I never know ahead of time what might come out when I write from week-to-week, and my editor, Chris Kornelis, encouraged this latest idea. If some of you want to take a stab at trying to add to this piece, please do.
* * * * *
She sensed that this was the point . . . the very stark moment that she had lost him. He hadn't come home for three days. The sheriff had stopped coming by to check for news.

His drunken yet cheerful voice gone--a drunk who was dampening down his intellect from the outside world--James was too smart for this place and its noise.

James had crossed the river bridge to the other side of town, a crossing he made to escape into a seedier life. It was a place where few would inquire about his intentions in this life, where no one cared what he was going to do with all of his credentials and intellect. No, the people on this side of the tracks would leave him be with his drink; unquestioned and intoxicated.

He would bring extra bottles over that river bridge, and sometimes buy folks at the bar a shot of their poison. He had no interest in making friends. But he knew this was the kind of favor that kept a mouth from wagging. The locals obliged, and the sight of James passed out in the gutter, or in the corner of the last watering hole of his evening, was met without even a whisper.

His liver would not work so well anymore, and his kidneys rebelled--causing his back to ache when he pissed. When the chance came to puke, and there was scant booze around, James would drink back up the fleeing fluid from his belly. He convinced himself that made sense.

Melanie wanted James to change his ways. To redirect his downward spiral into an abyss that would surely end with an early grave. Melanie knew James long before the problem had grown this bad. Sure, he drank then too--but not with the bad intention that it now had. He loved her, there was no doubt of that. But he couldn't say the same about himself. All that everyone else had expected of him was never attained. And he never wanted it. Ever. Any of it.

James was once a good-looking man, and he and Melanie were a couple whom others envied. They had the world in their back pocket, and youth was rarely better served. Melanie kept her beauty, but lines now appeared prematurely on her face, and her neck was habitually arched forward from worry and stress and heartache. James hated himself even more for this fact.

He had tried to quit many times. The shakes and panic would come in waves when he tried. His bowels would loosen and his skin would crawl as if a fire lay just beneath the surface. He had no one to go to for help. By now all of his friends had either died from the sickness or moved far, far away. Melanie and James had no family that they knew of. They were alone. He was alone. She was alone. They never thought that it would get this far. Those who had expected so much of James early on had long since abandoned all hope and fellowship.

They tried everything. In those days, a doctor would simply suggest sending James to an institution for the mentally infirm. James would not. Melanie too tried with the traveling salesmen of potions and medicinal elixirs. They, in their one-horse-drawn buggy, with gaudy signs telling of "cure-alls" and opium for "frontier boredom" and sunburn.

Melanie was a good customer, and salesmen sought her out. They kept coming well after James had given up on their snake oil.

The footbridge across the river was new. On one side lay the fertile fruit-crop fields fed by melted snow from the mountains 20 miles west. But on the east side of the river, the desert crept all the way to its edge, choking all hope of a crop or shade. It was a good place to put all of the saloons that were recently banned by the civic community in the west-side town of Natachee. The saloons were the perfect place for James to push back on his gift. He was too smart for this life, his mind and soul were just too aware of the dark things that man was capable of. He felt he could no longer do anything to protect Melanie from the evils.

Melanie slept with another man just after she and James were married; just after she lost her baby in its second term; just after they had to cut her inside, to save her life, but ending her ability to ever give one again herself.

James didn't give up. He said there were plenty of babies that they could give a home to, babies whose parents had perished in a mountain pass crossing, perhaps, or the unmentionable, a baby whose mother had become pregnant out of wedlock. Shame was too oppressive back then.

But Melanie couldn't bring herself to think of not having a baby of her own. And by the time the idea did start to come around to her, James was too far gone.

James kept thinking of the story his mother used to tell him as a child about a frog who lived at the bottom of a well. The frog was so very happy with life, what with plenty of water, just enough bugs, and a little bit of sunlight each day. A few times a day, a bucket would come down, but other than that, life was divine for this frog. But one day he was scooped up by this bucket. When he got to the top, the frog was dumped out gently onto the ground. "Oh, my!" said the frog. He did not realize that up here there was sunshine ALL the day long, and more bugs than he could ever want, and other frogs to talk with.

James crossed the river again to the east.

She would mutter to herself until she was hoarse: "Try, James. Try. Try. Just try," until she cried herself to sleep.

A frog croaked out in the moonlight. Tomorrow there could be sun. If it is not too late.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/03/try_a_short_story_by_duff_mcka.php#more

The Seattle Sound(s)

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Apr. 7 2011

Leading up to next week's release of The Taking, the new record from my band, Loaded, I've been put once more through the endless gauntlet of music-press and rock-radio interviews. I'm not complaining. I suppose there would be a need for a modicum of worry if the interview requests suddenly waned.
Next week also brings to public display a new installment at the Experience Music Project here in Seattle, Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses. My editor here at the Weekly asked me if I could somehow tie these two things together in one single column (Nirvana/EMP, and Loaded/The Taking). I actually think I can. It goes like this:

In doing all of this press for my new record, one constant theme has arisen from almost every interviewer: "This new Loaded record sounds very Seattle." The interviewers then go on to ask me if, by my living back in Seattle, this has given the new Loaded song-making process a Northwest slant. "Uh, no," I answer. I've lived back in Seattle since '93.

One thing that has struck me as obvious ever since I started listening to the early punk-rock singles and records that were coming from places outside of Seattle is that it was totally evident that our wet and cold environs here in the Northwest totally influenced the sound of its rock bands. We play in cold basements with jackets and hats on. The strings are damp. The guitar and drums are made of wood, which is also damp. The paper-speakers in the amp-cabinets are damp. We are playing music with LAYERS on! This makes the actual act of playing much more uncomfortable and a lot less fluid. The "Seattle Sound" is a by-product of our environment. Literally.

When I moved to L.A in 1984, I noticed gear just plain sounded different. I'm not kidding.

Another big difference that I noticed outside of Seattle was a real sense of competition between bands that were playing on the same bill or in the same "scene." In Seattle, there was just really none of that. Bands would loan each other gear and the use of a rehearsal basement and van or pickup for getting to gigs. Musical ideas up here were thought to be a thing to share, not to closet. This really led to a identifiable "sound" of sorts.

I'm not quite sure just why Nirvana has become arguably the most beloved band from this era that made the "Seattle Sound" famous. Alice In Chains were among the first of that era, and have withstood the test of time (and . . . death). Soundgarden pushed the edges of musicianship to the edges of genius, and are seemingly back. Pearl Jam have been the clarion-steady thing--always selling out arenas everywhere they go (no matter if there is a current "radio song" or not). The Melvins? Mudhoney?

This Loaded effort can also be associated with the Seattle sound and some of the aforementioned bands in that it was produced by a fella by the name of Terry Date. Terry produced or recorded a whole slew of these early demos and records, and he produced our new Loaded record. The studio is the same, too (Studio X nee Bad Animals). The way he mikes-up drums and guitar cabinets is the same. The way he pushes a vocal through on his mixes is the same. Dry and hard and tough, and without bluster or shine. Just brutal. In other words: the same old Terry Date. He sorta rules.

So what does the "Seattle Sound" mean today? If you are over, say, 35 years old, well then you probably equate it to these bands above. But one of the great things that happens up here is a change of identity, a constant evolution. Today the "Seattle Sound" is being defined by alt-folks, the likes of Fleet Foxes and The Head and the Heart. And what about bands like Death Cab? They sort of scrubbed the "old guard" rock out of this town. Not in a bad way either. DCFC are fuckin' genius!

I know that I am bouncing around a bit here, and that's just the point. This town has really done a fine job of providing a variety of musical identities. And yes, I didn't even get to the Sonics, Hendrix, Heart, or Queensryche! . . . heh, heh . . or The Fartz.

The Nirvana exhibit is a fitting time capsule of one of the sounds that has defined Seattle. But there have been many sounds that have defined this great musical city.

Loaded will be playing two upcoming gigs in Seattle. At Easy Street Records on Mercer on National Record Store Day (April 16), and a record-release party at Neumos on April 23. The gig on the 23rd will include an auction of rock and sports and fishing items of greatness, to benefit the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/04/the_seattle_sounds.php

Duff McKagan
A Walk Back Home

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Apr. 21 2011

Going back in time is just not a thing I spend a lot of time doing. Nor is keeping "current" with everything around me something that I strive for. I have kids, so that naturally keeps a parent's headspace in the here and now. I have had "new" rock bands over the last 15 years, too, and this keeps my striving for a current musical "voice" somewhat relevant, I hope. Or is that it?
Last Friday, I was invited to the opening of the new Nirvana exhibit at the EMP here in Seattle. I am a fan of the band, and understand and totally respect the sheer weight that the band had (duh). But I am one of those guys who has never been into seeing a guitar or drum kit or item of clothing that some historical rock artist played or wore. That kind of stuff just doesn't have much parity to the live rock experience for me. So in saying that, I wasn't quite sure just why in fact I found myself in my car driving down to the EMP during rush hour last week.

Seeing a band live has always been the "thing" for me. When I was young, and music was either on the 12" or 7" vinyl format, finding a new band at the record store was just too damn exciting. Punk rock had a young and small-but-mighty little scene in Seattle. Flyers on telephone poles around town announced whenever and wherever there were gigs. Often times, I would buy a single by some band, and I would see them play a show downtown somewhere within the same month or two. There was no Internet. There were no cell phones. It was all word-of-mouth and what you might read in some rare but hard-won fanzine like Maximum Rock 'n' Roll or Punk or Sniffin' Glue.

I kind of forget about this time. Well, I mean, that era still does everything for me in the most base way. I think of that energy then, and it still pushes me on to this day. In playing live shows, writing songs, being a dad, being a husband. "Punk Rock" to me is just truly about being honest, upstanding, and virtuous. Period.

So I walk in the EMP. In front of me is a stage where various dignitaries and financial backers are speaking about the exhibit. They are about to unveil it at any moment. I'm just kind of standing there, and I suddenly notice that the whole walk-through Nirvana exhibit is to my left. Empty. No one has gone through yet. I make my way over as I feel an odd pull.

On the wall is a display of records that Kurt or Krist or Dave all probably listened to in the early 80s: Black Flag's My War and the Germs' GI, among others. The same records that I listened to. Seeing those record covers on the wall brought back amazing memories.

On another wall was a sort of tapestry made from all of those local punk-rock flyers that I also have in a box somewhere in my attic. If those records were the soundtrack of my youth, then those flyers were the artwork that informed my young visual journey. An absolutely stunning moment there, suddenly, and out of nowhere there at the EMP, I was transported back in time.

I feel so damn fortunate to be playing gigs to this day. Those experiences in my youth still inform my whole being. Every time I get on a stage, I suddenly and instantly turn into a seething and drooling punker. I'm the luckiest man in the world to have had those early imprints that filled my cupeth to overflow.

I came out of that exhibit, and there was Ben Sheppard and Kim Thayil. Two friends that I know share a lot of the same experiences from our youth. Those dudes are still as real as it gets because of it. I was glad to see some guys right then and there who could somehow bring me back to the present . . . without talking about the past.

Have you ever just had one of those days, where you are just plain glad it happened? That was my day last Friday. Punk rock is alive and well on the insides of your author. Long live!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/04/a_walk_back_home.php

Cinema Verite and Debunking the Myth of American Innocence

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Apr. 28 2011

I am a product of the '70s. To this day, a lot of how I think and act out on different scenarios are informed by the barrage of childhood imprints that happened during that decade. FM radio. The Vietnam War. Punk rock. The Nixon impeachment. PBS television.

Television, for me as a kid, was not at all the babysitter it is now; there just weren't that many good shows and only five channels back then: CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and a local channel that played reruns of older shows. Going outside was just a funner and better option then.

Daytime network TV was filled with soap operas, much as it is now. But there were some forward-thinking exceptions in the day, like the weirder-than-weird Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Nighttime network TV was just then experimenting with the "mini-series" concept--great events like Roots, Rich Man, Poor Man, and The Thorn Birds came to form in this arena.

But PBS was always the sort of go-to place if you wanted something different. I guess it kind of still is, but there are just so many channels now that PBS just kind of gets thrown into the drone and hum of it all. But in the 1970s, Monty Python, Benny Hill, and The Saint were all very exotic TV shows. A chance to really escape to places with a different humor, or simply a different accent than our American one.

Just this month, HBO has released a new full-length movie called Cinema Verite, starring Diane Lane and Tim Robbins. The producers of HBO have decided to sort of re-examine a 10-part documentary that PBS released in 1973 called An American Family. The original documentary planted a camera crew inside the home of a rich, seemingly decaying, Santa Barbara, California family. It was supposed to expose the viewer to the REAL America "behind closed doors." The first reality show, one could say.

I remember the TV event being something of shock to the American system back then. But at the age of 9 or so, I was obviously too young to really be able to understand the documentary and its multilayered complexities. From the outside, Bill and Patricia Loud and their kids (aged 16 to 21) seemed like a West Coast counterpart to the Kennedy's Camelot: rich, good looking, and seemingly very happy. In reality, Bill was having numerous affairs, Pat was drinking herself into a dark and lonely corner, and the oldest son Lance was celebrating his homosexuality on camera, as his parents put on blinders to it all. Really quite fascinating.

The late 1960s and early '70s was a time in America when the innocence of the smiling and tanned superpower nation finally woke up and smelled the napalm which it was socially mired in. If you weren't around yet to understand the transformation of the '70s, catch HBO's Cinema Verite for a peek inside.

The interesting inside view that Cinema Verite shows is how the lead producer of An American Family probably manipulated the situation with the Loud family to get as much drama as possible.

You must understand that this documentary was meant to be observation in its purest form, and the camera crew and producers were supposed to be an invisible element inside the home and in the Loud family in general. The producer may have done things like push Pat to ask Bill for a divorce on camera, and perhaps even pushed Lance to act as gay as possible when the cameras were rolling.

We all know these days that "reality shows" are often far from "real," but back when An American Family began to air, the Loud family went into complete shock at what they saw.

I don't usually give movie reviews here in this space, but this HBO film really got me thinking, and gave me some scope and history to real situations being filmed on TV these days.

Enjoy!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/04/duff_mckagan_cinema_verite.php#more

Can We Now Get Back to Being Human?

By Duff McKagan, Thu., May 5 2011

By now there is scant little that I could possibly add to the actual detail of the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. Well, nothing at least, that hasn't been said or printed hundreds of times by now.

This column of mine started a couple of years ago with me writing from a more personal slant. I write about things like mountain climbing, rock tours, being a dad, and flexing the fact that I am a bad-ass (in spite of the fact that my wife always wants me to get a gallon of milk on my way home--even though I may very well be on my damn Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle).

I've been getting away from some of these personal stories in the last few months. Sometimes it is because I have been too busy. Other times, because I just don't feel that I have anything of substance to offer that particular week.

I received an email on my Blackberry Sunday night from a friend, who insisted that I urgently turn on CNN. I did. When the screen flashed a message stating that 'OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD' I was completely awestruck and silenced. My wife and two daughters gathered around me, and together, we witnessed this story unfold. As a family. My now 10 and 13 year-old girls, will never really know of the dire concerns I had about their safety and future 9 and a half years ago when 9/11 happened.

I woke up at 7 a.m. PST on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was looking forward to starting a new semester at Seattle University the following week, and with two babies at home, I was probably one of the happiest and most content men on this planet. Things were just plain good for me.

Like every morning before and since, I have either CNN on the TV, or BBC News on the radio. This particular morning, CNN's Headline News was on as I was making coffee.

The news usually is just a way to start the day somewhat informed for me, but that morning, there was a strange story on about a small plane that crashed into one of New York's Twin Towers. What? Well, they WERE very tall, and aviation accidents DO happen. But THIS? Right in the middle of Manhattan?! I sat down to watch.

The next thing that we all saw on TV was the horrible sight of a massive passenger plane slamming into the second tower. With no previous experience of this kind of thing happening before in history, the newscasters were left stunned and speechless, and my brain just could not comprehend what the hell was going on. I sat there in my living room, silently locked on to the television.

The following reports of the Pentagon attack and the plane going down in a field in Pennsylvania quickly illuminated the facts that the U.S. was under a terrorist attack. For what act? And, by whom?

All I could think of was to get my family safe.

As all of the facts about Osama Bin Laden and al Queda started to get dispersed to all of the news agents, and all of the facts about people jumping from the higher floors of the towers, and then the Twin Towers imploding to the ground with all of the innocent people inside, and the Fire Fighters trying to rescue them....I sat and tried to figure some of this shit out. 10 years later, I am still trying to figure this shit out.

In the 2 weeks that followed, I started into a sort of downward spiral that I believe all of America experienced as a collective. WE as a people, we realized, were not our government's foreign policy. WE as a people, had no interest in 'empire building' or even the Middle East. I, like most other people around the world, just wanted my family safe, and to work hard so that their life could be better than mine. That is just a HUMAN thing, isn't it?

My neighbors, and family, and friends all came together then. I hugged complete strangers in the street. Everything was cancelled. Major League Baseball. Commercial airline travel. Schools. The streets and skies of America were silent and empty. It was scary and profoundly eerie.

But there was a strange sense of unification through all of this. Those of you reading right now, who may not have been old enough then to remember, missed out on a poignant and beautiful time of collective mourning and healing. I had never cried so much before then, or since. It seems corny to some of you I am sure. But that was a time in my life that will just forever stay static and precious.

I immersed myself into educating myself on all things present and past pertaining to tribes and countries in the Middle East. I studied Islam. I read about the Koran, and had previously read a few books of poems and ruminations by the prolific and profoundly sensitive Muslim poet Rumi.

It was my previous experience with Rumi, that actually had me convinced from the get-go of the 9/11 terror attacks, that this was not at all a 'Islam-versus-the-world' Jihad. No, the killing of innocents was nowhere in any doctrine that I could find. These were just fundamentalist assholes like the ones we can find in any state or province in any country around the world...at any time.

I hope now, with this particular fundamentalist gone, we can as humankind get back to being human...and kind to all...all of us, together.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/05/can_we_now_get_back_to_being_h.php#more

Duff McKagan: The Top 10 Rock Band Dos and Don'ts

By Duff McKagan, Thu., May 12 2011

It dawned on me the other day that at this point in my life, I have been in one rock band or another for more than 30 years. This rarefied status should definitely give me a point from which to reflect a bit, and maybe even dispel some hard-won knowledge, the things that work and do not work within the makeup of a rock band. No?

With no further ado, then, here is a quick cheat-sheet on some of my wise(assy)ness.

1. Find a good and solid drummer first. Without a great backbeat, your band will simply never get out of the starting gate.

2. After that first solid drummer becomes too much of a pain in the ass--jettison said drummer, and repeat step #1. This process could very well end up consuming the rest of your career!

3. I'm kind of kidding about #1 and #2.

4. Get a singer that has what we call L.S.D.--Lead Singers' Disease. That person has to have the ability to stand in front on a stage, and usually with no guitar to stand behind--and absolutely OWN the whole stage and venue.

Yes, it takes an odd sort to feel comfortable in this odd situation. It usually takes a person who has very high thoughts about his or her own personage. It WILL get old after a while to the other band members. But hell, by the time the band is sick of the singer's antics, the sychophantic managers will already have found a way to wedge the original band guys out of the group.

5. The use of high levels of alcohol and drugs usually play cozy bed-partners to all persons who are in the later stages of #4.

6. Get a bass player who has a good sense of humor, because inevitably the "bass player jokes" will start to chip away at that poor sucker.

(There was a scientist visiting a lost tribe in the jungles of Africa. He was there to document the village life. On the day that the scientist gets to the village, the tribal drummer is playing for hours without a break, and everyone in the tribe seems happy and tranquil. The moment the drums stop, though, the villagers take off screaming through the jungle, away from the village. Then the scientist stops the chief of the tribe before he takes off, and asks why everyone is so scared and fleeing in such an abrupt fashion. The chief looks at the scientist in a panic and says, "Oh, now comes the bass solo.")

7. Guitarists are always cool from the outside. Their appearance onstage is always the envy of all of the "cool people" in the audience. If your kid wants to play an instrument, steer them to this instrument.

8. Everyone in the band should end up helping carry the gear to and from gigs. One thing that the band guys will have to look forward to, though, is the fact that their fitness will eventually be the best. Yeah, singers never DO end up helping in the endless schlepping of gear.

9. If you think I am only speaking of one particular band that I have been in here in this column, you are sorely mistaken. These steps are commonplace with most all rock bands that I have either been in or witnessed.

10. I have played all the above instruments in one band or another, so yes, I have indeed fallen in the trap of every above scenario!

11. Yes, I DID state that this is a "Top 10" list, but we musicians aren't the best at numbers . . . and letters . . . and names . . . and geography . . . and book-learnin'.

12. Have a GOOD sense of humor. If you take all this stuff (like this column) too seriously, then indeed you are not in on the joke--and hence will miss all the "good times" that being in a band will bring you.

13. And once you find yourself in a band, and you feel that the chemistry is perfect and the music is the best thing you can ever be a part of--just enjoy that time. All the other personal crap that you may have to endure, is just that . . . crap.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/05/duff_mckagan_the_top_10_rock_b.php

BIG Prince fan...

There's Taking Things to the Next Level, and Then There's Prince

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jun. 2 2011

Life can get overwhelming for all of us. There are blocks of time when--and even when you are ultra-aware of it and its reproductions--stress and tension and work and family obligations take us out of ourselves. Some of us have religion, yoga, exercise, and creative art to relieve life's weight. But sometimes we need a little something more. For me, seeing Prince play the Inglewood Forum during his multi-week stand was just what the doctor ordered.
I have been a die-hard Prince fan since the early '80s. When Controversy came out in 1981, a punker friend of mine in Seattle demanded that I listen to it. Prince was unlike anyone else.

When 1999 came out in 1982, the record transformed my insides. I was going through a tough break-up with my first real long-term girlfriend and was heartbroken. 1999 somehow became my psychiatrist, and I held on to that record for dear life as I slowly got my feet back under me.

When Purple Rain hit, I was free and starting to take life by the balls. That record was the soundtrack to my life and gave me the confidence to move to L.A. at 19, with nothing more than belief in myself. Prince's music can do that.

Flash-forward to 1992. GNR were playing stadiums around the world. My life, again, was getting confusing and unfocused. In an attempt to contain things, I was going into studios in different cities, and making a record on my own, trying to get some of that "Prince-ness" back into my life.

I was in Berlin on a day off of the GNR tour, and Prince was playing the arena there on his Diamonds and Pearls tour. I went, of course.

Because I was an ersatz and begrudging "A"-lister, I was ushered backstage in a rush when I got to the gig. I had no knowledge or hint that I was going to meet Prince that night, but I was suddenly shown into a backstage room, and there it was, just me and Prince. I was completely tongue-tied and overwhelmed. I didn't know what to say, and what I DID say probably sounded like dumb-ass babble.

I mean, how was I supposed to tell the guy that he and his music had gotten me through so much stuff, and that he was maybe THE reason I was now in a band that, had he not inspired in me the confidence to move to L.A., may not have happened? How was I to really tell him how his music had gotten me through so many rough spots, and helped me to celebrate my triumphs? How? In truth, I don't remember what I said to him at all. Dumb-ass.

My wife Susan and I went and saw Prince again in Las Vegas a few years ago for my birthday. He was doing a residency at the Rio Hotel. The gig was magical. Every time I see him I get inspired and just plain feel better about myself and others.

There are other bands and gigs that do this for me once in a while, but Prince is just next-level shit to me. Actually, much further than next-level.

I was getting ready to tour last week. It is always stressful to get everything organized and together. Not to mention going to New York that week for my book business. I also hate to leave my family. And it seems like everything in my house is broken and in need of repair. My car died last week, too. My back hurts, and I can't find a belt that fits me right. My feet were starting to slip out from underneath me . . .

I wanted to do something with Susan and my daughters for my last night before I left for a tour of Europe. And I wanted to see Prince at the Forum before I left, too. I decided to combine the two things. We went as a family to see him.

My girls really had no idea who Prince was, and I think really only went because they knew it was my last night and it was something that their dad wanted to do.

I told my older daughter, Grace, that she was about to see maybe the best pure singer on this planet. I told Mae that Prince was magic, and that intrigued her, I think.

So there we were. The house lights went down, and the first chords of "Little Red Corvette" sounded. I was suddenly in a different space. All of the things that had been overwhelming me suddenly evaporated. Prince played all of his hits that night, and it was an uplifting barrage to my soul. It was like church, I suppose. It was religious.

I'm just not sure how this dude does it, but Prince is a better performer, singer, and guitar player than ever. If he is in fact getting older, a person would be hard-pressed to recognize or spot any tell-tale signs of his time. No, like I told my daughter Mae, I think he has some serious magic working in his corner.

Prince is a pure genius. I am changed. It WAS just THAT good.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/06/theres_taking_things_to_the_ne.php

Tour Diaries: The Highs, the Lows, the Ass-Grabs

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Jun. 16 2011

Loaded have been over here in Europe for the June rock festivals. We have done this a few times before, so now we have been moved up a few notches on the time slots. It's a good feeling for a band trying to make its name.
A band like ours has to play every single night--or as close to it as we can--to make it all work out financially. Often we will play a show and then do a "runner" (bail the stage and take straight off to the next city, dripping wet and all).

We played the Download Festival again, but this time we were on the mainstage instead of the second stage that is in a tent. Loaded has gone "big time" . . . sorta.

I have now played Download on five separate occasions. The first time was with GNR in 1988--when it was still called Donington. (If you have ever seen the video for "Paradise City," the black-and-white portion of it was filmed there.) I have played there twice with Velvet Revolver and now twice with Loaded. It has become a second home to me of sorts, and playing the mainstage meant a LOT to me and the band. And we KILLED it, quite frankly.

But we did have to pull a runner . . .

So coming off that stage, in front of some 40,000 people, the band was pretty stoked. But we had to get in a van and rush headlong back down to Heathrow Airport, some 140 miles away, to catch a flight to Prague.

That's all fine and dandy, but we were running late, and now it was looking like we wouldn't make our flight . . . that means not playing our gig in Prague the next day . . . and that would have killed this tour on a financial level. So there we were . . . stressing BIG-time, and telling the driver to please go over the speed limit--without seeming like assholes--proved to be a challenge.

So we make it to Heathrow and RUN with all of our guitars and whatnot . . . we have 45 minutes until this flight takes off. Will they accept our baggage this late? Can we even make this flight? Do I smell as bad as I think I do? Ah, the highs from that Donington gig are starting to wear off.

We make it through security, and then to our gate. Ahhh, we are all good. Stressed a bit, for sure, but all good.

We get on the plane and they shut the doors, and then the pilot gets on the PA system and announces that we will be sitting here for an hour . . . with no power on. The heat on the plane is oppressive, and I start to get claustrophobic (a plight that has plagued me for years). To add to this, there is a Japanese soccer team in the back of the plane, and they are all hacking their lungs out. My pores are open, and my immune system is run-down. Fuck.

The highs from the Donington gig, just a few short hours earlier, are officially gone. And this, my friends, is basically how it goes on a rock tour.

The next day in Prague, we played a gig with the Misfits. For a punk-rock dude like me, that was pretty all right. But I DID get sick from those dudes on our plane. REALLY sick. Nothin' you can do but forge on. The day after that, we played the Nova Rock festival in Vienna, Austria, with Danzig this time. Again, pretty fucking cool for me.

The virus I got from that soccer team finally passed through.

This week, we are playing a string of gigs with my new most-favorite band, DOWN. Phil Anselmo turned me on to a Swedish band called GHOST, who wear masks and hide their real identities--AND blindfold their interviewers when they take them to do a interview. Cool. I dig that kind of stuff. The majesty and hilarity of rock is still alive and well in Sweden, I guess.

My wife comes out to join me in a couple of days. I will definitely have to take a bath and clean some of my clothes . . . and curb my language. Actually, she is a pretty damn good "road dog" herself. She may even spit and try to grab my butt . . . just like the guys in my band do! Well, hopefully, anyhow?

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/06/tour_diaries_the_highs_the_low.php

Last Call on the Tour That Shouldn't End
By Duff McKagan
Thu., June 23, 2011 at 6:27 AM

Some of you know that I am currently on tour in Europe with my band Loaded. A lot of the gigs we are doing are at those magical European festivals with names ranging from the self-explanatory (Sweden Rock) to the Germanic (Rock im Ring and Rock am Park) to the inexplicably information-age-ish (Download) to the odd. France's Hellfest is a better name than its former moniker, FurryFest, but still conjures up the idea that it's filled with Satan-worshipping bands. And I don't think Iggy and the Stooges, The Cult, Mr. Big, or Kyuss are anything close to death metal . . . nor do any of those bands wear corpse-paint.
So, as this will be my last post from the field on this tour, I thought that it may be fun to let you all in on some of my personal highs from the last four weeks:

Ghost: I know that last week I wrote maybe one sentence about these guys, and their whole mask-wearing shtick.

Later last week, I was backstage with Down's Phil Anselmo, and asked him if he'd gotten a load of Ghost's whole deal (no one knows who the actual band is, as they hide their identities, and blindfold their interviewers, etc.). Phil looked at me, kind of like an excited kid would after hitting his first Little League homerun. "Do I KNOW who Ghost IS?!! Dude. They are my new favorite band! Listen to THIS!" He proceeded to play Ghost's new record for me and Mike Squires. Mike bought it on iTunes immediately, and I followed suit.

Ghost is not what you would expect, I guess. Well, I've never actually given a "satanic" band a chance in the past. But if you like indie rock, Blue Oyster Cult, early-'70s rock 'n' roll, and a good pop song . . . check these guys out. Really great songwriting. Killer players. Great analog recording. All of that, with a bit of the ol' Lucifer thrown in.

Down: Best live rock band of the month. Anselmo means it. The band sounds ridiculous. Black Flag mixed with the best of stoner rock equals greatness (read: Down). Yes. Greatness. I don't need to say much else.

Lifehouse: You may ask how it is that I can put Lifehouse in here right after Ghost and Down. I must say, this band was never really ever on my radar before I saw them play two shows over one weekend a couple of weeks ago.

These guys write really good pop songs, and execute them with ease, flair, and even some balls. These guys have some roots in our own Port Orchard, too. I'd go see them again for sure.

Judas Priest: Yes! Loaded has had the chance to play a few shows with the almighty Rob Halford and co. And, even though guitarist K.K. Downing inexplicably bailed out right before this farewell tour, there IS still Glenn Tipton at stage left, shredding it up pretty damn good. Rob Halford has, hands down, the best and strongest pure hard-rock voice ever. Ridiculous.

Family Guy: Yep. I hadn't seen the show until last week. Our drummer, Isaac Carpenter, has been on me for like a year to watch this show. I've never been into adult cartoons and thought I was somehow above these types of shows.

Finally, on the tour bus last week . . . I relented. Isaac has a few seasons of Family Guy on the hard drive of his computer. The first one he played for me was the episode when the Dad (Peter) gets injected with the "gay gene." Holy fuck. The funniest and most twisted show on TV, or maybe ANYWHERE! I, for one, am now completely hooked.

French Loaded Fans: Who knew that people even knew who we were here? In my whole career, I have never had the pleasure of playing four straight shows in France. From Lille to Paris, and Strasbourg to Clisson . . . just great and excited fans of the rock.

Hanging out and touring with Mike Squires, Jeff Rouse, and Isaac Carpenter (aka Loaded): This has been one of those tours that, while I miss my family at home, I just don't want to end.

These guys are the fucking best dudes EVER. We travel light, and tour hard--often having to react and move and perform, with little to no information and less sleep. It is a perfect scenario to garner hot heads and snappy-ness. We have none of that.

It is rare to be in a band where there is no inner-band gossip. Loaded is that rare band (unless of course, they are gossiping about me, and I just don't know it!).

On this trip, it has been an honor and a pleasure to travel and fight the good fight with these gentlemen.

My wife Susan meeting me in Paris, sans kids: Fancy time. Yes, that IS what I mean.

Bonjour. Ahoy. Good day. Guten Tag. Etc.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2 ? o.php#more

Our Night With Britney Spears: I Stayed in My Seat, But My Girls Made It Onstage

By Duff McKagan Thu., Jun. 30 2011

So, um . . . yeah. I, your trusty scriber of all things mostly rock, am going to try my best here to give you all a blow-by-blow account of my experience Wednesday night at Britney Spears' Tacoma Dome concert. Yep.

Some of you may remember me writing here about my night at the Justin Bieber concert. If you do, then you will also know that I am the father of two girls, now aged 10 and 13. I encourage music and arts with my daughters, so when they want to see a concert (any concert!), I will take them. I have learned to leave my preconceptions sitting next to my dog Buckley--squarely at home.

OK, enough of me explaining my attendance.

With me just getting back from playing a whole slew of shows in Europe, going to a concert on my third night back probably was not on the top of my list of priorities. Especially a concert in Tacoma.

Driving ANYWHERE with teen and preteen girls involves--in my case--a large dose of finding the right music on the right station at the right time. When I am facing a drive that involves some time or distance, a parent in my position must sort of steel themselves and become almost numb. If you were to actually think in advance how many times you will be asked to turn up or down the music, or to "switch back to that OTHER station!", you go a bit numb with caustic pre-coil to the long drive. We listened to Ray J, Nicki Minaj, LMFAO, Britney. Not exactly deep and soulful. But the girls were wrapped up in THEIR moment, and last night WAS their night, after all.

From the get-go upon arrival, people-watching is the component that slaps one upon the broadside of the head at a Britney Spears show. The first person I saw was a rather larger and manly-man, dressed as the schoolgirl version of Britney. He was not exactly sexy in my view, but the bloke probably felt so sexy deep down inside. Alrighty then. That's all cool with me.

We all know of the crap the Britney Spears has gone through in her life, especially over the last seven or eight years. Drug use, a mental downward spiral, a child custody dispute in a very public forum, etc. One of the first people I saw and talked to at the gig was Britney's dad, Jamie Spears, a nice and very hospitable gentleman from Louisiana. You could visibly see the relief in his face and demeanor at the recovery in life that his daughter has seemingly been having as of late. I can respect what he must have had to deal with.

On to the show. It was a spectacle of Cirque du Soleil proportion. Britney seemed relaxed and happy, and just as or more important, my own girls were just absolutely losing their sh#t. The production was amazing. The show was G or PG-rated. The hits were unstoppable. My girls even randomly were chosen and invited onstage to dance at one point. My wife Susan took them to the spot side stage when it went down, and I stayed in our seats. The next thing I witness was ALL of the McKagan girls onstage dancing . . . even MRS. McKagan! The usher near me just looked at me and chuckled in a "you-poor-bastard" type of fashion.

But my girls had the time of their lives, and so did all 20,000 of the other people in attendance.

As we left, I saw the same dude in drag leaving the show in the parking lot. He seemed a bit disheveled and used, like a hooker after a long night's work. Britney has been through a bunch of crap that may have left her--all these years later--looking a bit haggard and disinterested too. But she was on top of her game. I was happy for her. If nothing else, as a dad of girls myself.

P.S.: I would like to send out a hearty congratulations to 'AxlReznor' and 'Katy (just me)' who write in often to this column.I have known then as a couple for the last few years, but I just learned tonight that they actually met years ago through a Velvet Revolver fan-forum on our website.

They will be getting married this weekend in their hometown in England. Other attendees will have traveled from the U.S. to be able to be there. These people have met too on either Loaded or VR websites. It is nice to know that social media brings with it love and friendship.

AxlReznor and Katy had BETTER make me the Godfather of their child--if they so choose to go that route. I'm just sayin'....!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/06/our_night_with_britney_spears.php

The Sound(s) of My Summer: From Glasvegas and the Saints to Prince and Band of Skulls

By Duff McKagan Thu., Jul. 7 2011

It has come to my attention that whilst I have been away, Seattle Weekly has been having "guest writers" chime in with what is on their iPod's "Top 10" list. Thought this was clever and interesting.

As I sat down to write this column, I have been ruminating on all of my great experiences here in Seattle this past week. Britney Spears, A Perfect Circle, a Mariners game, a comedy show at the Paramount, riding Harleys with my good friend, and spending time with my family. Good stuff. Summertime is indeed here!

With that being said, and getting back to the "playlist" idea, I will illuminate my most recently purchased digital music for you to perhaps help fill your summer-music criteria. Write back with yours. Let's have a party!

Glasvegas, "Geraldine" (self-titled): A great early Clash-esque band from Glasgow, Scotland. I HIGHLY suggest getting this whole record (titled simply GLASVEGAS).
Tokyo Police Club, "Favorite Food" (Champ): A haunting yet somehow jangly song that is definitely a theme to someone . . . somehow. It reminds me of the Saints from the late '70s into the '80s.

The Saints, "I'm Stranded" (I'm Stranded): Before the Sex Pistols made the genre popular worldwide, there was a little punk-rock band from Brisbane, Australia, writing the songs that would influence so many.

The Saints, "Blues on My Mind:" Chris Bailey is a genius. Listen to this song and let it overtake you.

Kanye West, "Runaway" (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy): You just can't count out old Kanye. He seems to be getting better and darker, with his tongue planting more solidly in his cheek (I hope?).

Twilight Singers, "Waves" (Dynamite Steps): Greg Dulli has come back again with another stroke of his songwriting brilliance. This whole record is a journey worth taking from beginning to end.

Florence and the Machine, "Howl" (Lungs): The first time I heard this song I was in some hipster retail shop a few months back. I thought it was some Kate Bush song that I had somehow missed back around the Lionheart era. Nope. I thus discovered Florence & the Machines.

Ghost, "Ritual" (Opus Eponymous): Give this record a chance for sure. If you like good '70s analog rock and roll . . . lend these dark spirit-loving lads from Sweden a moment of your time. They will be playing El Corazon in September, and other North American . . . uh . . . haunts.

Prince, "Laydown!" (20Ten): This "hidden" track from Prince's latest record made me go back and revisit "For You" and "Dirty Mind." For whatever reason, I hear the young man experimenting again. Live? Well, of course there is NO ONE better.

Band of Skulls, "I Know What I Am" (Baby Darling Doll Face Honey): A perfect addition to anyone's summer song list. It's never too late to be the coolest kid on your block, cranking out some Band of Skulls.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/07/the_sounds_of_my_summer_from_g.php

Because the Bookstore Has Taken Up the Strip Club/Bar Space In My Life ...

Thu., Jul. 21 2011

I had the pleasure last night of going up to Elliott Bay Books, one of Seattle's best independent book stores. Bookstores to me these days are like what my experience was in the past of going to a bar or maybe even a strip club . . . I'm like a kid in a candy store when facing shelves and shelves of books. The only poles at these places hold up bookshelves, and the only "crack" here is the small sound a book makes when it is opened up.
I do pretty much all of my reading on my Kindle, but I buy the physical books, too. That is, I buy the e-book for my device doo-hicky, and the hard cover for my bookshelf at home.

Kindle isn't always the best way to find new books. It's cool for sure, in the way that if you hear about some new book, you can instantly download it to your device. But a bookstore is the ultimate way to immerse yourself into what is new. You can browse, and you can ask around, something you just can't do in the cocoon of e-commerce.

Here is what I found:

Corey Taylor, Seven Deadly Sins: I've known Corey (of Slipknot fame) on a personal level for the last few years, and have come to know that he is one of the smartest dudes out there. When he told me about his journey into authordom, I had no doubt that whatever topic he chose to write about would be deep and heavy.

I just picked this book up last night and gave it a cursory browse. It looks fascinating. It's a funny yet poignant look at Corey's own dip into drugs and vice and asinine behavior in his youth, while also studying the age-old question of whether certain personal traits are learned or bred into a person.

Corey Taylor is one of those people that just seems impossibly good at whatever he chooses to pursue, and I have no doubt that this tome will reflect this fact.

I can't wait to see what Corey's version of "Sloth" is! I shall report back to you all.

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (hardcover): Either you love Cormac McCarthy's prose, or you can't get through two pages of it. There seems to be no middle ground. His writing is too real and brutal for any half-measures. I am a huge believer myself, and anytime I see a McCarthy title that I don't have in hardcover, I will pounce upon it. Elliott Bay Books is the type of store where you can find these types of hard-to-find titles.

Steven Kasher, Max's Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll: This is one of those coffee-table books that a guy with my influences just has to have. It wasn't my birthday, but purchasing a book like this does feel celebratory.

I never got to go to this club in New York before it closed down, but if you are a fan of The Ramones, The New York Dolls, Iggy Pop, Bruce Springsteen, or Patti Smith, well then you undoubtedly know of the lore of this hollowed ground.

Michael Hodgins, Reluctant Warrior: There are newer titles coming out about our U.S. soldiers' experiences in Vietnam. Just when I thought I had read everything there was to know about this conflict in Southeast Asia, boom, there comes another great account. Michael Hodgins writes with ease about his time as a Marine at the end of the war.

There is nothing at all wrong with a Barnes & Noble or Borders store. In many of the sprawling outskirts of our larger cities, these stores may be the only convenient means to browse what is available book-wise.

But the little indies like Third Place Books in Seattle, Powell's in Portland, Fingerprints and Book Soup in Los Angeles, or Warwick's in San Diego and Strand's in Manhattan instantly take me to a warm and inviting place where I feel welcome.

As with all of the other times that I have written "suggested reading" columns, please feel free to criticize my picks, and suggest some recent reads of your own.

We nerds must unite!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/07/because_the_bookstore_has_take.php

Thanks, Guys. See You on the Road (and on Dr. Phil!)

By Duff McKagan
Thu. Sep. 29 2011 at 10:20 AM

Well, guys, your trusted scribe is heading out for his first-ever book tour (see all my the dates here)--not only here in the U.S., but also in the UK and Ireland. You are left in the trusty hands of, well, my book.
Seattle Weekly will be running selected excerpts from It's So Easy (And Other Lies), for the next 4 weeks as I travel.

Before I check out of here for that time, let me just thank you all for hanging out here while I have tried (and sometimes failed) at this art of writing. I'm proud of the community that we have built here, and look forward always to your comments. They have made me a better writer. They have made and sometimes forced conversation. They have enlightened. Those are all very good things indeed.

If some of you want to come hang out, I will be in New York next week. Come down to the Strand book store in Manhattan, or Bookends in Long Island, or the Book Revue in Huntington. You may just find me combing through the first-edition section . . . or trying to find Suttree in hard cover.

Or next weekend, if you are in Southern California, try the Costa Mesa and/or Santa Monica Barnes & Noble, or Book Soup up on Sunset Blvd. If you can't find me at the signing table, tell them to look for me in the crossword book section. More directly, at the section where New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz has his selections.

I will be doing plenty of interviews too. So if Dr. Phil or the O.C. Weekly or the Miami Herald is more your speed, check me out there. I'd tell you what I spoke with Dr. Phil about, but I signed a waiver promising that I would not do just that. He is on to us here.

If you are in Minneapolis, and are a frequenter of the Mall of America's Barnes & Noble, we can get together and shop for some Husker Du at the record shop.

If you like Seattle as much as I do, come to Third Place Books in the north end.

Or come to the University Bookstore, where I grew up.

Or the Seattle University-sponsored Elliot Bay Bookstore event--and see where I did my book-learnin'.

Or come out to the Neptune on October 20 and listen to me flubber through a reading of selected passages--as Jeff Rouse, Jeff Fielder, Paul Hutzler, and myself guide you through a musical "then and now" of the bands I have been in.

Yo, Portland! Loaded had an amazing time playing down there a few weeks ago, and I am psyched to be doing a book-stop at the lofty Powell's. Acres of well-chosen books. Maybe I can find a seafaring or polar-exploration book that I haven't read yet.

In La Jolla, California, I am honored to be signing at the great and prestigious independent Warwick's. I do believe that I will be on the local news that morning . . . interviewed by none other than my very own wife, one Susan Holmes McKagan.

Oh, and if you see a pair of fairly beautiful young girls out there, that'd most likely be my two daughters, Grace and Mae.

If you come from the other side of the pond, try me at WH Smith in Glasgow, or Waterstones in London, or the HMV's in Belfast and Leicester. Those won't be until the first week of November, but still . . . At least over there, perhaps the wait will be paid off doubly, as Loaded has been invited to play some gigs along that book-tour route.

It is possible that over the coming weeks I'll be asked a bunch about GN'R being nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. What an honor it is, and I will probably be short for words. None of that has really hit me yet. I mean . . . uh, what would YOU say, besides . . . THANK YOU.

So indeed. Thank you all.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/09/thanks_guys_see_you_on_the_roa.php#more

Herman Cain Sucks. Here's the Real 9-9-9: 9 Nights, 9 Shows, 9 Chances to Melt Faces in the UK
By Duff McKagan Thu., Nov. 10 2011 at 11:18 AM

Since last week's rather spasmodic entry that entailed me trying to be funny and cute with the written word whilst bouncing around the Irish Sea locked in a tour bus with no power, my band Loaded just concluded the first part of this month-long odyssey. We played nine nights in a row in a brutal tour of Britain and Ireland.
Not in my boundless-energy punk-rock band days, or in any other band since, have I ever tried doing nine nights back-to-back. AND the only reason a band like ours can even attempt this now is that our buffoonish antics offset the strenuous and often tension-filled profession that is playing in a touring rock band. It is hard fucking work.

Plus, on the tour bus, we have supplanted cocaine, late nights, binge drinking, and shacking up with some strange man . . . er . . . woman, with the more intellectual hobbies of reading books (I've got The Invisible Bridge, and the guys are all reading MY book . . . of course!), crossword puzzles, and watching our lead guitarist, Mike Squires, play Scrabble on Facebook.

Sitting here at London's Heathrow airport, about to fly to South America for another run of shows, has given me time to reflect a bit on the mad dash that has comprised my life since Halloween.

Day 1: Fly from LAX to Heathrow, grab my bag and guitars, and drive four hours to York. Do sound check, drink massive amounts of energy drinks, stroll the "Shambles" (the medieval part of York), and play a rock show. The gig was at a place called Fibbers, one of those low-ceiling clubs you wish every rock venue was like. Loud, sweaty, and ferocious!

Day 2: Wake up in Glasgow and head over to a bookstore to do my first signing in the UK. Thing is, they had only 30 books, and 350 people showed up. I e-mailed the publisher to convey my disappointment. They are embarrassed. Fortunately, the show in Glasgow was especially fierce.

Day 3: Get on a ferry and go straight to a book-signing in town, do some interviews, and then play Belfast's Spring and Airbrake. We've been here before, and now we even know a few people in town. We get some sleep on the bus in front of the club, and wake up and do a national Irish radio show, live to the whole isle, before driving to Dublin (about the same distance as from Tacoma to Seattle).

Day 4: Do another radio show, do another book signing, and play a rock show where the whole crowd at The Academy seemed to sing every lyric to every song . . . in unison. Magical. Back to the ferry.

Day 5: Wake up in Wrexham, Wales. Go get stuff from a drug store (like toiletries and such). Bassist Jeff Rouse and I notice that there are an inordinate number of young girls pushing baby carriages. We then find out that Wrexham is the teenage-pregnancy capital of the UK. Ah . . . Later I introduce "Sleaze Factory" (a song about fucking . . . er, sex) as a dedication to Wrexham's youth. Afterward, we hop the bus and I get into a fight with Squires.

Day 6: Wake up in Oxford. Make up with Squires and head off to find a gym. The gym I find is the Oxford University Fitness Club, and I find myself seeing Rob Lowe out of the corner of my eyes time and time again. When we play Oxford Academy that night, we find out that it is Bonfire Night, but still con ourselves into believing that all of the town's fireworks are Oxford's way of welcoming Loaded. Back on the bus.

Day 7: Wake up in Leicester, go to book signing. Work out at Leicester University gym, and rock like crazy. My wife showed up in London, so I take a car to London after the show and proceed to have "fancy time" with the Mrs. McKagan.

Day 8: Drive up to Bristol and play the famous Fleece club. It was absolutely packed--this crowd had seen the YouTube of the Dublin show and wanted to outdo their Irish neighbors. It made for a great show. I drive back to London. More "fancy time."

Day 9: London show. I always get nervous for these big-city shows. My back was hurting, so I got myself a massage. The therapist asks me what I do for a living as she is digging into my muscles. She says that she has never felt a body so badly torn up. Whatever. We play London, and it fuckin' KILLS.

Throughout all of this tour, members from our UK "Seattlehead" fan fellowship show up. Most of these people write into this very column . . . and it is always an honor to have some of these people around. They help us get through tours!

Day 10: Go to the Classic Rock Awards and see Jeff Beck and Chrissie Hynde play "Stand by You." Incredible!

Ah, so I hear my flight number being called. Stay tuned for another installment of "Journals of the Jubilant but Often Jet-Lagged Journo."

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/11/herman_cain_sucks_heres_the_re.php#Comments (http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/11/herman_cain_sucks_heres_the_re.php#Comments)

Hollywood, Class, and Kids in the Hall

By Duff McKagan
Thus., Dec. 15 2011 at 2:51 PM

So I played a gig last night in Hollywood that commemorated Dimebag Darrel and Ronnie James Dio. The gig, called "DimeBash," is a very public fundraiser that sells out annually and draws press from around the world. Last week, Guns N' Roses was given the "nod" for the Rock Hall of Fame. I now realize that I use the word "overwhelmed" much too often in my life.
Music to me has never been a competitive sport. We do what we do, and if you connect with an audience and write the songs that feel good to you in the process, that is reward enough. Getting a Grammy or an American Music Award seems a little bit weird in this whole context. I mean, are you BETTER than all those other bands? No. You are just doing YOUR thing, and they theirs. It's not a competition.

But it became very apparent to me that fans of GN'R felt very motivated for our band to "get into the Hall." All of those fans ARE very important to me, and thus getting this RRHOF nod was a victory for them. And so I am deeply honored and feel very good about this whole deal. Thank you all.

I spent a lot of time revisiting my past in the book I just wrote. Living in the past, or just revisiting it, is something I hadn't done until I was in the process of writing that book. The process became personally poignant in how much I appreciated and loved most of the characters in my past, especially the guys in that little band from Hollywood that we formed just after I moved there in 1984.

I've done my best to avoid doing any interviews that pertain to our induction, and maybe this column will serve as all I really need to say for now. I am a grown-up now, and hope that we can achieve some grace and class when that ceremony comes. But in the end, I am only responsible for myself.

At that Dimebag gig, I rode down with Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains. We were talking about old demos of theirs and how AIC got signed to Columbia back in 1988. I became good buddies with those guys shortly thereafter, and we've seen each other go through many ups and downs . . . remaining friends through all of it. I love hearing those old stories, and always try to put myself into what those surroundings must have felt like for a band when they were first starting.

With Jerry's story still ruminating in my head, he and I took the stage at the Key Club in Hollywood. I avoided the press people who were there, and simply wanted to play my songs and "get in and get out."

VH1's Eddie Trunk was the MC for the night, and he introduced all the different players who were playing throughout the night. When he got to me, he said, "And recent inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Duff McKagan." I was suddenly a tad overwhelmed. It was a first. Jerry looked at me and gave me a nod of "FUCK, yeah!" The crowd there went nuts. I sheepishly waved, and then kind of awkwardly looked at the ground and pretended that I had to tune my bass or something.

My band Loaded has been asked to play a couple of shows with Axl this weekend in Seattle and Vancouver. I was somehow reluctant at first to do this. I love that dude, but wanted to sort of stay out of the fray, especially after that whirlwind tour of the world we had just done. AND that damn book tour.

But this fray is only a fray if I let it be. And now I am actually pretty excited to see my old pal. His band is the nicest bunch of fellas, and I will be home after all. The KeyArena will be rocking tomorrow night . . . and I hope you all show up.

After all, it is just some dudes doing what they know how to do best: connect with the audience, that fan-ship that has honored us with their presence for so damn long. And THAT, my friends . . . is overwhelming.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all.

--Duff

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2 ? h.php#more

11 Things I Learned About Music, Books, and The Twitter In 2011

By Duff McKagan

Thu., Dec. 29 2011

Sometimes, if you are lucky enough, you are in a place where you can learn from a particular event in your life. Sometimes those lessons are hard-won, or learned at a high expense to your own ego. Those seem to be the best ones for me.
Other times, pleasantly surprising things happen when you least expect it. Of course, those things are always welcome.

So here are just a few of those "things" and lessons I have gleaned from this past year.

1. If you write a book about yourself, just remember; a LOT of people will now know those things about you that you have shared.

Yes, that may sound like a no-brainer, right? But, I was so caught up in the literary process of writing, that I didn't think much BEYOND that process. I thought maybe it might be the same as when I share a bit about my personal stuff here at the Weekly. Turns out that there was much more in the book that my 1000 words.

2. The Seattle band The Chasers are KILLER! How can you lose when you have a bare-chested, white leather coat wearing guitar player nicknamed, the Ice Wizard! Well, if you like Muse, Queen, Maiden, Death Cab, and Zeke, all mixed into one, check out The Chasers. They are an original....really.

3. If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. No explanation needed here.

4. When your kids are ages 11 and 14, they no longer believe in Santa Claus. Even after I queried, "Well then WHO ate those cookies and drank the milk?" C'mon Dad. This is getting embarrassing....

5. Seattle is the best place on this earth. I didn't just learn this in 2011, but it still stands.

6. Seattle needs the NBA back. Again, I didn't learn this in 2011, but it still stands.

7. Cormac McCarthy first edition hardbacks are expensive and hard to find. I toured many bookstores this fall, and could only find a first edition Blood Meridian. It was $2000.00. Uh, nevermind.

8. I look terrible in cartoon form. Whoever the illustrator at the Seattle Weekly is, probably needs some glasses. I'm not THAT old looking. Geez, I am only 47, er...just about 48. Uh. Nevermind. Carry on.
9. Riding Harley's in Chile with my friends is pretty damn kick ass. Enough said.

10. This is a question actually: didn't we already pay a toll on the 520 Bridge? Seems like back in the day, until I was a late teenager (see #8), paying a toll at a toll-booth on that bridge. What are we paying for now?

11. Go out and see a local band and support your local scene. We are lucky here in Seattle, with all of our clubs and talent. And places like London, Sau Paolo, Glasgow and Buenos Aires are really taking off, too, with their local bands and rock scenes.

12. Okay, I know I said "11 things," but it IS just about 2012, so, um...yeah. If you are on the Twitter, beware of this thing I now call the "Tweet to follower ratio." If you have a, say 1000/1 Tweet ratio (that is, you've tweeted say 10,000 times, and you have 10 followers), you should consider backing off on the Twitter time. Conversely, if someone with a 1000/1 Tweet ratio actually Tweets you, you should think twice about replying. You are probably dealing with someone who might Twitter until the wheels come off. Just an observation.

And to that note of the Twitter. If you haven't followed @Johnroderick yet, do yourself the favor. I don't even try to be funny anymore over there. Roderick is the Michael Jordon of Twitter-humor.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2011/12/duff_mckagan_twitter_seattle.php

More from Duff on the subject...

Let's Try This Again

By Duff McKagan Thu., Jan. 26 2012

It's not at all uncommon that I write a piece here that I hope inspires discussion in the comments section. My mission statement of sorts has been to help usher in a higher bar for social media. I know that we are capable of educating each other, and I have been thrilled at some of the deep conversations that have taken place here. We are capable of much more than just typing "fuck you, you suck dickhead" under an anonymous moniker. We have (largely) succeeded.

I wrote an article last week on the SOPA/PIPA debate. I was hoping to get a conversation started about a facet of the debate that I hadn't seen explored. I think in my rush to write it, I assumed many things about some of my readers here. I wasn't clear on some things.

For example: I received e-mail from some fans of my band or things that I had done in the past, who were pissed at some of my wording. I never meant to lump true supporters of music into some catch-all "all you fans" type of category. To all those fans of music who go out there every day and hunt down music with the sole intent of wanting to fully support artists, if you were offended, I sincerely apologize.

I am a great supporter of music. I love to go see bands, and buy their T-shirts and CDs. I urge others publicly to go BUY bands' new records. I know how hard it is to make the whole thing work from a basic economic scale. Artists do have to pay their own way when they record something new. And, believe it or not, that shit is still expensive, even if you do it at home. You need a computer and an expensive program. You need mic pres, and good microphones, a mixing board of some sort, and compression and mike stands and drum kits and amps and strings and time off work and guitars and numerous other pieces of gear . . . just to record your first note. This is not including the time you need to write the damn songs.

I have been there as an artist when the Major Label rips you off. I have been there when the manager takes his cut off the gross while you are left to pay for the crew, travel, hotels, a bus, gas, food, and every other expense involved in touring. I've been there as large merchandise companies try to sell your shirt for 35 bucks while you demand as hard as you can to charge only $15. The artist still has to pay for the shirts and the printing, and ends up making a dollar--maybe two--off the end sale. I've been there.

Even at the height of major label-dom, the most a band would make off a record was something like $2. Split among five people, after paying for your producer and mixer out of that $2--well, you can do the math of what a band member would see from that. Pennies. Oh, and of course before you see penny number one, you do have to pay back that label for the recording costs . . .

I was there when the major labels kept trying to change formats so that they could sell artists' whole catalogues over and over. I could see it plain as day when the digital format was introduced just as home computers were beginning to be the norm in every household. It was only a matter of time before file-sharing on a large scale became a major player in how music was delivered to the end user.

I saw Napster try to work with the labels. They tried to cooperate, and share the immense advertising revenue. The artists would get paid. The labels would get paid, and people would get their music for free . . . legally and without feeling like a thief or living in fear of legal prosecution. The labels balked. The labels failed in their short-sightedness. The labels are now in serious trouble, cutting back to a point where I believe major labels will be fully a thing of the past within five years.

I am not an advocate of "the man." Never have been. Never will be.

But I AM an advocate of the artist. Those who, since Chuck Berry, have gotten the short end of the stick.

A lot of you argue that illegal file-sharing gives some bands and artists worldwide exposure. Maybe so. But whose place is it to say that a band who records their own shit and puts it up on their site for sale, or on iTunes, doesn't actually need those folks to actually purchase their music, so that they can afford to just eke out paying back the expense that they took to record that thing?

A lot of us will buy three grande lattes at Starbucks throughout a day ($15 or $20?), and then complain about paying $10 for a CD. I'd argue that all you get from that coffee is the jitters and bad breath, while that CD gives you music, that beautiful thing that'll fill your soul for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

I understand that there is a new paradigm. People argue that "Art wants to be free" and that the digitizing of music is all the proof that one needs for that argument. But aren't there many arguments that can offset that one?

The real argument or point I wanted to put up for discussion was with people on Twitter and Facebook going so damn crazy last week when Wikipedia went black and everyone was complaining about something called PIPA. How many of those educated themselves first before they went on the Twitter and exclaimed "Fuck the SOPA. I want my first amendment rights" or "Big Government is taking over!!"?

A wise man once said to me: If you don't understand something that a government or business does, it's always going to be about the almighty dollar. We must educate ourselves, and then take that education to the rally.

The PIPA bill, as it was written, left so many gaping holes and open language that those in that business who would be looking for loopholes to capitalize against a smaller competitor could use this bill to squash said competitor.

For those of you thinking that PIPA and SOPA were equivalent to what is going on in China, please make that argument. But try to back that argument.

If there was some way to have a person-to-person, live, open "town hall" type of talk about this whole deal, I think a lot would come of it. A Senator. A musician or two. A person who used to own a recording studio. Someone from the movie business. A book publisher. Advocates for open file-sharing. And so on.

Hopefully this week we can all sort of get along and try to educate each other here in the comments. Let's try a "do-over."

Please reply with your real name.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/01/lets_try_this_again.php#more

8)

The Table

By Duff McKagan Thu., Feb. 9 2012

One year older last week. They brought me to a place with a large table set for dinner, with lessons on all sides.

At this table, there were friends I met underneath church pews when I was still small enough to run beneath those pious. These friends and I grew until now, and our under-the-benches play, has spawned a true benchmark for men who are close.

At this table, WHO says only men get better looking with the years? The women at this table all looked wise and beautiful and full of glamour. My wife has beautiful lines, especially in her curves. My sisters are an elegant bunch. Our female friends have all aged with the ease of a small ripple in a pond. Silent. Smooth. Graceful.

I am here to say that you women have it good.

At this table sit my friends new and old. Some men I can count on, men who make me stand a little taller, because they have witnessed me fall ... many times.

At this table, my bandmates of now. For 12 years our struggle has sharpened our whit, and made those things you'd have to talk about before- a matter now, of only a glance and a nod.

At this table, I felt an urge to laugh. My folly and doubt about my place in this life, suddenly seemed embarrassing and small. My place is with these people, and we have earned our right to lean on each other. And laugh.

At this table, are the funniest of tales. Most of them are true I'm afraid. We chuckle and heave at our folly and goofs along the way.

At this table are my brothers and sisters of blood, and my brothers and sisters since then. We are all a family now as we sit together.

At this table I am suddenly so very god-damned thankful, and kick myself for EVER doubting.

At this table is a gift. A guitar made and hidden for nearly a year. Many of these friends and siblings paid for this unspeakable instrument. All of them kept it hidden from me.

Until that night ... at the table.

At that table, I started to get charged. What the hell is next for me? It doesn't matter so much at this very moment. I have the confidence to see that there is no rush. This life is not a race.

At this table, I saw in my wife a person who cares about me, and not everything else. That is a gift that cannot be put into words.

At this table, I got a new lease on life. A second wind; one to take me the rest of the way.

I write about family so much, but my friends get me through just as strongly. A mighty bunch of warriors. No one gave many of us much of a chance at one point or another. And this is something we can chuckle about too...while the poignancy of it all, does sit heavily, in the layers of that still-room air.

At this table, we are surrounded by Seattle. A place I can revel in. A city that makes me proud and comfortable and happy. Can you imagine that a city can do that for a person?

This table seemed much too large, but as dinner began, it was full. And then some.

At this table, I am now aware of my place. It is to be a husband, and a brother, father, and an ass-kicking friend. Open all hours. Around any day. I'm only moments away. I am here.

Life is good. Life, is REALLY good.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/02/the_table.php

A photo of Duff writing this column: http://yfrog.com/od3pfxpj

Once Upon a Time In Mexico

By Duff McKagan

Him: "Wanna buy cigar?"
Me: "No, gracias"
Him: "Weed?"
Me: "No. Me no fumar"
Him: "Cocaine?"
Me: "No. No gracias"
He walks away, scratching his head.
Repeat again all the way up and down 5th Ave., the shopping area and 'returant row', of Playa Del Carmen, Mexico.

I am in Cancun this week on a working vacation. I am playing a small acoustic gig for a company that I work in tandem with. It's pretty cool that I can bring my wife with me for this Valentine's week. All expenses are paid, on top of what they are already paying me.

If this is "selling out," well, shit, bring it on! I'm into it.

I can see doing this kind of thing at this point in my career. Greece? Turkey? Hawaii? South of France? That'd be pretty cool, eh?

I could see it now" Me and John Roderick putting together some wacky acoustic duo. We'd get the hipster and rocker accounts. He and I could while away the hours on the beach somewhere, me with a ukulele, he with some bongos....practicing our set between Scrabble moves and a running snark-filled, ironic commentary on life.

But in all seriousness, these trips and tours are always a great opportunity for me to observe and learn about others' cultures and people and their society on a whole. Music. Politics. Economy. Fears. Hopes.

I feel like Samantha Brown, but with more dude-like observations.

When this Cancun trip was booked, I had heard from more than a few people, to be careful. The "Drug Wars" down here in Mexico have been making a ton of headlines lately; the headlines coupled with a few episodes of "I Survived," can scare the hell out of anybody, I suppose.

My own experiences from traveling south of our U.S. border though have always been epic. In a macro way, the people down here--and further south, too--just seem happier and care-free (for whatever reason!).

I took a cab down to Playa Del Carmen on Tuesday. It's about 35 miles south of where I am staying (or, about the distance from Seattle to Tacoma). I was with my wife, Susan, and the cab driver suggested that he could give us a ride back once we were done shopping and eating dinner. He wouldn't charge to wait for us. He dropped us off in this bustling town, and did not make us pay for the ride down.

He trusted us that we would call him for a ride back and pay him then.

There were about 50 cabs down there, and we could have easily just taken a different cab back. But this dude simply trusted us. It seems to be the way things are down here. It seems simple, right?

But my head screamed "Dude! We could have dusted you and only paid for half a trip!"

------------------

I always search the cable channels when I go abroad. I like the BBC News, and even CNN International. More and more, though, I am seeing the FOX News Channel being aired in other countries, and this is the case with the cable here in the Riviera Maya.

Ah! I get it now. THAT is why those fellas we offering me drugs down in town. They must really think I am uptight and stressed.

.-------------------

80s music seems to be a big thing down here right now. Yes, like Rick Ashley and Culture Club. For whatever reason, wherever I have gone so far on this trip, there is some drum machined-up 80s anthem playing in the store, restaurant, or cab. Very loudly.

Just food for thought.

Last night, I saw an incredible world-class mariachi band playing. Really, really good and soulful, and JUST the thing to break the 80s onslaught I had just been through for the previous 48 hours.

Tonght (Thursday), this kick ass mariachi trio will be joining me on stage for the event I am playing.

Sorry, Roderick. You have been replaced!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/02/once_upon_a_time_in_mexico.php#more

Test Case (Still Fear the "Man," I Guess)

By Duff McKagan Thu., Mar. 8 2012

It is no secret that I fly a lot. It is also no small secret that I have a history with substance abuse, general mayhem, and public intoxication. You know this. I know this--and I fear that every cop worldwide knows this. TSA included.

God only knows what kind of databases "they" have on us all. Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA, DMV, Scotland Yard, local police forces, and TSA all get their info about us from these huge databases. We are screwed.

But I have lived a clean life lately, and I usually have no problems going through airport security and screening. I know the drill:
1) laptop out and in a bin
2) shoes off
3) empty your pants pockets (if you are going through the "body scan" type of thingy)
4) belt off
5) coat off
6) no liquids over 3 ounces, and the liquids that you DO have that are under that weight must be in a plastic bag
7) Some airports require you to take your Kindle out of your backpack, but others do not. The ones that don't require it actually get kind of mad when you do take it out--so be careful . . . you WILL get yelled at!

The attitude of the TSA workers varies widely from U.S. airport to U.S. airport. It is a great indicator of what the working environment must be like in those different airports. The trick is to not take any of this personally. If you travel as much as people like me, you even get to know what to expect at Dallas, Newark, JFK, SeaTac, and Burbank.
You'd think that the TSA would have one sort of "party line" and pretty much stick to it. You'd find yourself to be disappointed with that assumption, unfortunately.

Did any of you read about those TSA agents that they busted out in New York and New Jersey? Officers at Newark and JFK were busted stealing money, jewelry, iPads, and laptops from passengers either directly going through the security line, or were stealing out of their baggage down below. That kind of stuff has always kind of scared me in a whole other way. What if they planted something on me so that they could get a bust? Well, that is how MY brain works sometimes.

Some people just look a little out of the norm. Whether you are dressed religiously, like a hip-hopster, or are a tattooed love god such as myself (what?), you may be setting yourself up for a tad bit closer scrutiny by those at airport security.

I travel with the same backpack everywhere I go. It has all the stuff I need. Laptop, passport, good-smelling stuff, gum, Kindle, crossword puzzle book, throat coat spray, Ocean Spray (the secret for keeping healthy whilst breathing so many germs on planes). All of these tiny liquids are even too small to have ever registered in the "3 ounces or below" category, so in my backpack they have remained . . . for all of this time. Until last night at SeaTac.

As my bag went through the X-ray, I could see the person watching the screen call over a superior. They asked me if it was my bag. I nodded. They were going to have to run it through again. I eyed the guy closely as he carried it back to the belt . . . watching for him to "plant" something on me--or steal my beloved crossword book or laptop. But my heart started to speed up too. Shit. Are there some ancient drugs in that backpack? And even though this backpack is much newer than any old drug habit I've had, I went into a shaky paranoia. "They need to make a bust, and that bust is gonna come at MY expense. They are going to plant something on me!!" I started to think if I had a lawyer to call for my "one call" . . .

As the officer brought the bag over to me and asked if it was all right to go through it, I thought to myself all the bad thoughts about what was certain to befall me. A public fall from grace. What would I tell my kids? How was I going to write Thursday's column for Seattle Weekly?

It turns out that after the 100 trips I have taken with this Ocean Spray and throat spray . . . that these were the culprits that were tripping up the X-ray machine. So that's it? THAT'S IT?!! It took you guys one hundred times to finally catch this? Hmmm.

I was irate when I finally got to the magazine stand. "Kardashians AGAIN?! Jessica Simpson does a scandalous pregnancy photo-shoot?" What's next? Contraception being included in health insurance?

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/03/duff_mckagan_1.php#more

Hey, What Happened to the Radio?

Jun. 29 2012

When radio execs test a new single for an artist, they gather listeners into a room, throw on a few different songs by the same artist, and ask the participants how they would have reacted if they heard the song on the radio. Would you:

A. Turn the station if you heard this song?
B. Would you turn up the volume if you heard this song?
C. Would you do nothing if you heard this song?

The reaction they are looking for is "C."

Think about that for a second: These stations don't want you touching the dial. Not even to crank the volume (I guess they think you will mistakenly change the channel if you reach to turn up the volume . . . dumb consumer). This is modern methodology, and this information is used in the multitasking of the record label/radio station partnership. No one wants YOU to touch that dial.

Of course, we get it. We are grown-ups, and understand business. This IS just business, after all, but as a result, any new music that a radio station might play these days isn't necessarily the song that will make you react the most. It's the one that will have you just lazily stay on that station so that they can play their lucrative advertisements for stuff that we will hopefully consume. Kind of sucks, if you ask me.

There used to be so many songs written with the romantic notion of a radio being on somewhere. Radio used to have a cool factor. Radio stations across the U.S. would have their own playlists, and often a local band would get their big break by first being played on the radio in their local town.

Today's hyper-tested radio music has gotten too vanilla, tedious, and mundane.

Personally, I wish there was an old-school punk-rock station in every city. I'd listen to rock radio more often if that were the case. But I like "old-school" everything. Old-school R&B, '70s rock, etc. And seemingly, people my age DO have purchasing power, right? Wouldn't some smart corporate Clear Channel-er figure out that playing radio ads for cars and clothes to a guy like me may just be a ingenious thing to do?

But I'd like the chance to find out about new-school music via the radio, too. I love me some Beach House and Red Fang. What else is out there that I don't know about? Do I have to search online now -- hit up the Pandoras and YouTubes and Spotify -- or go to a Capitol Hill coffeehouse to get down with what is new these days?

Will there ever be a time in the future that somehow kids like mine will tune in to a radio station rather than listen to their iPods? Would I have listened to the radio if I had an iPod way back when? I might have . . . if not just to discover something new.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/06/hey_what_happened_to_the_radio.php#more

Coming Down the Mountain

Aug. 30 2012

When I wrote recently about the Heroes Project-sponsored climb of Mt. Rainier for Cpl. Kionte Storey, there was really no way I could have forecasted just how awesome this undertaking would be.
The 23-year-old Storey lost his right leg to an IED in Afghanistan one year ago, and this climb would be a test of whether he was choosing to go in this life, as opposed to wallowing or feeling sorry for himself. The Heroes Project provides a healthy outlet for some of these kids. What could be a better physical and mental symbol for overcoming than some huge mountain?

Mt. Rainier ain't no joke. I was given the opportunity to tag along for the climb.

Prosthetic limbs take some time for a user to get accustomed to. Carrying a pack full of real weight up slippery snow, rock, and ice can put stress on these prosthetics that they were probably not designed for.

The climb up to Camp Muir (10,000 feet) is test enough for anyone. To Muir, the eventual Rainier summiter must carry everything needed for a few days' stay: tents, pads, stoves, food, pots and pans, shovels, rope, crampons, ice axes, helmets, food, layers of different types of clothes . . .

The initial push to Muir is arduous as hell. Kionte Storey listened to Linkin Park on his iPod, and did not utter one word of complaint about his leg or the climb. He just smiled and marveled at the impossible scenery. Snow and mountains and glaciers are not the norm to a kid from Stockton, Calif.

Our leaders were three gregarious men with Everest on their resumes. On the mountain, these dudes were the rock stars. At Muir, you would hear constant whispers about the three dudes Kionte and I were with. We were safe as one could be with these three, so they strongly suggested that we take an extra day to rest at Muir and acclimatize to the altitude. A sound plan.

Now listen: For my part, I had trained my ass off for this climb. Being invited on this climb meant that I should also be ready and able to help wherever and whenever I could. I climbed stairs all over Seattle. I ran and lifted weights. I did lunges and strange-looking "burpies" that exhaust the body. I ate right, and tried to rest my body before this climb. I was ready, damn it . . . READY AS HELL.

On summit night (you "wake up" at about 10:30 p.m., get ready, eat, and begin the actual summit push at about midnight in the dark), Kionte was looking strong and I felt ready and able. The weather was good and somewhat stable, and before we knew it we were cramponing up some icy ledges and hopping over crevices and running across dicey rock and ice fall areas.

Some people adjust better than others to altitude. I have read countless books on different climbs and climbers, and the fact remains that modern science still hasn't really figured out why altitude affects different people -- regardless of their fitness levels -- in different ways.

My right eye suddenly blurred at about 11,000 feet. I kept it quiet. I didn't want to be the guy who held up the group. Pride plays a factor up there, and pride is dangerous in those slippery, steep, and treacherous places.

In the dark, I suddenly saw the outline of "little" Tahoma, the sister mountain of Rainier; its summit was actually below me. My body felt strong, lifted by the sight of young Cpl. Storey and his headlamp arduously making its way higher, just above me. Blurry or not, you just carry on.

At 12,000 feet, both my eyes went blurry, and nausea was overcoming me. It was a sort of step, step, heave . . . step, step, heave type of gait. But I still felt strong, and I hoped that this phase would pass. Just keep going, Duff . . . it ain't about you. Don't be "that guy." Think of punk rock. Think martial arts. Think of your family, and think of Kionte.

At about 12,800 feet, a guide from another climb came up to me and announced that he thought I had a cerebral edema "and could die soon if he doesn't get down very quickly." Hey climber-dude-alarmist-guy . . . chill the fuck out. Without me really realizing it, I guess my eyes were rolling around a bit and I was stumbling like a drunken sailor. What the?! I felt strong as a bull! Kionte went into "Marine mode," and it was time to turn this climb around. The mission was now to get your erstwhile columnist down the damn mountain. Heaving, stumbling, and talking nonsense (I guess).

Life is funny sometimes, and a situation that's supposed to go one way can often go quite another direction. I had to pull everything I had from deep inside of me just to get down. Cpl. Storey, I am sure, gained confidence. He took another one for the team, and made sure his fellow brother was OK.

Cpl. Storey will now attempt Mt. Vinson at the South Pole.

Me? Well, that mountain is still there, and I have, after one week away, trained my eyes back to the summit.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/08/coming_down_the_mountain.php (http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/08/coming_down_the_mountain.php)

Duff McKagan: Depression Ain't No Joke

By Duff McKagan Thu., Sep. 13 2012 at 11:01 AM

Once in a while, life can kick our asses. Some of us have the chemical makeup that can rise to the occasion of these ass-kickings. Some of us have a great network of family and friends that somehow help us through. Others of us perhaps have neither of those favorable winds at our back.
Depression often will make us isolated from others and run from life in general. Being alone with one's own thoughts can and will be the most terrifying and dangerous place for the sufferer of most types of depression.

Some of us are born with the trait. Some of us go through something early OR later in life (or both early AND later) that can suddenly trigger a downward spiral.

I had never experienced real depression in my childhood or early adulthood. I had plenty of friends who did, but still I would scratch my head . . . and think to myself "Just snap out of it!" when friends did tell me of their issues regarding depression. But I HAVE suffered panic attacks for most of my life, and I do understand that chemical imbalances and other inputs can stack up against someone . . . way beyond the "Just snap out of it!" realm.

And then September 11, 2001 happened.

The world seemed to be in upheaval, and all fronts were under attack. Everything was suddenly fearful, and my own place on this earth seemed muddy and without bedrock. My daughters were 4 and 1, and suddenly my idealistic vision of being the perfect dad was acutely obscured by movements beyond my ability to control. I sunk into a thick, black state of being. Depression for the first time.

Ah hah. Yep. I get it. Depression IS in fact a real thing.

And once the door was opened to depression in my case, the monster became a living thing in my life. I could look at it and examine it after time, but in that initial instant, I did not see a light at the end of the tunnel.

The world seems to get scarier by the day. Bad jobs reports. Some asshole making an indie movie decrying another people's belief. The failing of our Republicans and Democrats to act in actual Congress. People getting hurt and killed in places like Afghanistan . . . and on . . . and on. But what I have found in fighting thoughts and feelings of depression is to actually talk and get out -- face the day head on if you can. "Today is going to be the best day in my history" is not a bad place to start. Share your "stuff" with others. Don't be afraid to do it. You may just be surprised by how many like-minded people there are out there. Depression and anxiety have touched most of us to some degree or another.

And some types of depression do need medical treatment.

Last week, there was a brave essay shared by man on the Internet. He has suffered a horrible fight with some serious depression, and decided to write about his journey thus far. I back this kind of guts and fortitude.

As you will see, Andrew Lawes has come through a ton of darkness, and has had the gift of a new baby to help him sort through his "stuff." Mr. Lawes was probably overwhelmed by the huge response he got back from fellow sufferers. You are not alone, my friend. Thanks for letting us in.

Again, THIS space is a forum for us all to exchange ideas. The world may seem dark and fucked-up and overwhelming, but we are the ones who will effect change, if there is change to be had.

There is a way out of depression -- you just got to get to a place to examine the monster.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/09/duff_mckagan_sept_13.php (http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/09/duff_mckagan_sept_13.php)

How to Be a Man

By Duff McKagan Thu., Jan. 10 2013

I wish I had the answer.

There's never been an adequate manual for instruction on how to be a man. Images of put-together, suit-wearing studs drinking whiskey on TV commercials are just not real life. As much as we fellas want to be like Jason Statham, kicking ass at will--well, good luck with that.

I don't look as good as Statham does when I wear a tuxedo with my bow tie a bit loosened. My kung fu will never be as fluid as what I see in movies. My hair will never be cut to perfection, and top-shelf cologne can't make everything else in my life perfect and well-kept.

All that said, I have made some observations so that I may help the man-traveller of these current and confusing times:

To be a man also means to be a man of your word: In this day and age, being straight-up with others is almost a foreign tactic. A completely new and strange phenomenon has surfaced because of text conversations between men and women (I have been made to understand). In the song "Say My Name," the girl wants her man to say her name out loud in a phone conversation--because she suspects that her dude is with another woman.

Now that texting is the main mode of conversation, apparently, suspicious ladies are now asking for a picture from their beaus. As in: Show me that you aren't with some chick. Man up. Don't commit to a girl unless you are done being the carouser. If you feel solid in your relationship but your girl still asks for a picture, it may be time to move on.

Learn how to fight: Yep, go box or learn some style of martial art or mixed martial art. It'll actually have the opposite effect on us fellas. Instead of being threatened out there at a bar or whatever, having skill in some fighting discipline will calm that dumb machismo that all of us dudes are born with, and those previously thought threats from some dumbass will suddenly seem silly. Fighting skill and conditioning will give you confidence in many areas of your life.

Save it for your girl: The "it" I am speaking of actually acts as "glue" for a relationship. Monogamy is key. If you can't be honest with your lady, it serves that you aren't being honest at all, and that is a loser's game.

Get a cause: A good friend of mine with a wife, three kids, and a full-time job still finds time to volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House. Guys like these are a true inspiration for the rest of us fellas.

Don't road-rage: See #2. Keeping calm is an art form perfected only by the manliest of men.

See people in person: Or at the very least, call.The art of conversation is a dying thing. Man up and sit down for coffee with that person you usually text with. That's right . . . and look them in the eyes (this may seem totally weird for anyone under 30, I understand).

Be the man: Be a good example, even if you've got to fake it. Your kids observe everything you do. And even though it may not seem like it at the time, your kids want to be like you. They want to be proud of you and brag about their dad at school and to their friends. Be observant of your own actions around them kids.

Lead by example: Men are fixers. It gets frustrating for us fellas if we can't mend a situation, or if others don't adhere to what we think is righteous and forthright. All you can do is be the best you can be at that moment. Forge ahead in your own light, feet firmly planted, chest out, shoulders back. It will be noticed when you lead by example.

Listen to your girl: We men sometimes get frustrated when our ladies talk. We will try to actually converse when she is deep into a story about the boss being a dick, or some other friend of hers doing your girl wrong. Do not even try to fix this situation! Your sweety just wants you to listen. Hell, you don't even have to agree. Just listen. This is black-belt-level man stuff.

Do the dishes: Hell, take it one level further: Cook the dinner and do the dishes. Doing laundry is man's work too, as well as cleaning up after the dogs and cuddling your kids. Having a home life where you get the opportunity to be a family man and partake in all these things is a very good thing. It means that you have matriculated your man thing to the very top level. Keep it up.

Don't be a pussy: Don't shy away from a situation just because it's tough. If it is protecting the one you love, or things are tough at work . . . pin those ears back and remember who the fuck you are.

Get smart: Educate yourself on what is going on in culture and politics. Read some books about history. Don't be a pawn, be a scholar.

Evolve: Our dads and granddads grew up in a different time. Communication and tenderness were not neccesarily components of their age groups' makeup. You don't have to be exactly like them. Even though we saw good examples of man-stuff in them, the times they are a-changing.

So you see, there are no real tips for how to look like a male model with the perfectly hewn facial hair. There are no fitness guidelines on how to get that perfect six-pack ab look. I'll let you know about all that stuff once I figure out how to unwrap this P90X DVD and get my wax on.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2013/01/how_to_be_a_man.php

Here Today... Gone To Hell!

The Perils Of Rock N' Roll Decadence => Duff, Slash & Velvet Revolver => Topic started by: FunkyMonkey on August 28, 2008, 10:27:16 PM