Duff McKagan's Column In Seattle Weekly

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[FunkyMonkey]

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.

[Mr Bootlegs]

Thanks for uploading all these FunkyMoneky! Really enjoy reading them.

[CheapJon]

Thanks for uploading all these FunkyMoneky! Really enjoy reading them.

yeah funky's the king! hope he understands how appreciated it is

[FunkyMonkey]

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?"

[lynn1961]

Thanks for uploading all these FunkyMoneky! Really enjoy reading them.

yeah funky's the king! hope he understands how appreciated it is

It is appreciated!  As well as all the other articles he posts!  Thank you! 

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

Too bad, his column was one of my Thursday highlights.

[IzzyDutch]

^ Same here, but the last couple of weeks I got the impression that he was out of stories.. in the beginning they were much more fun to read.

[FunkyMonkey]

From Duff regarding all of the responses he has received from his last column...


Duff says:

Hey Hugo and everyone else!
Uh...whoa! Thank you all for the support and kind words. I'm certainly going to continue to write-just not sure of the direction or medium (if you will). I am a little embarrassed and overwhelmed by the response. All of you guys are SO VERY COOL and an amazing cross-section of humanity is expressed here. I am honored to be 'read' here...make no mistake! Now I've got to get on a plane.

Duff

Posted On: Friday, May. 22 2009 @ 7:51AM

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[CheapJon]

duff for president in 20 years?

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[CheapJon]

these are always very good reads, thanks for postin' FM

[kobys]

Well the first one is sure to offend obese people everywhere but I have to say that I agree with the man. I think that when you travel on an airplane and you're heavy enough to take up two seats, you ought to have to pay for two. Afterall, that extra seat that you're taking up is one less that the airline can sell. It never ceases to amaze me on these certain talk shows how these people will bring out these grossly overweight toddlers and procede to tell the host how they won't eat anything but ice cream or this or that or whatever. Hello!!! They cannot eat it if you don't buy it! Another thing is, in So. Cal where I live some fat ass man tried to sue McDonald's because he wouldn't fit into their seats. The seats that I'm talking about are the ones that swivel (sp?) out. Well whoever designed them wasn't counting on people who weigh 500 friggin' pounds! Anyway, I'll be quiet now because this is a VR board and I'm rambling I know. This just happens to be something that I feel passionate about. And yes, I also find Duff's columns entertaining.

[FunkyMonkey]

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