Duff McKagan's Column In Seattle Weekly

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[FunkyMonkey]

Seattle Weekly Extra:

Last Night: I Listened to Ozzy, Slash, and Friends in Wolfmother and Jane's Addiction at the LAYN Benefit

By Duff McKagan in Duff McKagan

Monday, Nov. 23 2009

Last night, I was fortunate enough to participate in a benefit show for LAYN, an LA-based shelter for teenage kids who have had a rough start of it in life up to this point. LAYN provides a starting point for these youth, and an emotional safe haven. Slash asked if I'd play the show, along with a bunch other killer folks.

Here is my list of tunes inspired by last night's performances.


Wolfmother, "Woman," I know these guys just put out a new record but I have yet to get it. Watching Andrew Stockdale perform "Woman" convinced me that perhaps Wolfmother will be around for a long, long time.


Jane's Addiction, "Mountain Song." I remember  first seeing these guys do MS in a LA club in '87. Last night, some 23 years later, that song has lost none of its urgency.

Ozzy Osbourne, "Crazy Train." We are all just lowly pretenders when OZZY enters a room. Fuck!

[Naupis]

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

[D]

Wow, now that was a great read

really, when i listen to music, u don't find that groove very often. that is a reason no other album in rock sounds like Appetite. bands have tried the marshall/les paul combo, they've done it all but where Duff was a guitar player playing bass, and Steven rehearsed with a guitar player.. it just did something to their groove that most other bands just don't possess.

even on UYI with Sorum, u can tell that groove no longer exists.

[IzzyDutch]

^ I agree 

[Albert S Miller]

I really don't know how I want to respond to this, but the last paragraph was very touching, and Steven is a very lucky gent to have been gifted this so called second chance to play with Slash and Duff, it is very clear it was uplifting for all three of them.  Well done

[FunkyMonkey]

Seattle Weekly Extra:

I've Been Listening to Joy Division, Lou Reed, and Kelis

By Duff McKagan

Monday, Nov. 30 2009

Joy Division, "Atmosphere" (Permanent): This song and this record as a whole always has held a spooky -- while beautiful -- and very honest place with me. Atmosphere is a spiritual meditation.

Kelis, "Milkshake" (Tasty): If hip-hop/urban music has a punk-rock anthem, then it would most certainly be "Milkshake". I have always really dug how sister Kelis rolls. This chick is a bad-ass!

Lou Reed, "I'm Waiting For My Man" (American Poet): I really was a late-comer to the stylings of Lou Reed and even the Velvet Underground for that matter. This Lou Reed track has lately become one of my favorite songs and will stand up to any other genre of music if you have your iPod on shuffle. That is always the test of a good and relevant track to me.

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

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

He read all these great books, but he couldn't write a decent song...(post Guns)

Damn.

[russkwtx]

^Ouch.

[Dayle1066]

He read all these great books, but he couldn't write a decent song...(post Guns)

Damn.

Dont suppose you've heard a little album entitled Sick that was released earlier this year. Or maybe a little further back, Neurotic Outsiders? Beautiful Disease?

[IzzyDutch]

Once could say the same about certain other bandmembers.. 

As far as I'm concerned, post GN'R (I see Axl, Slash, Duff, Izzy, Steven as GN'R) it's Izzy followed by Duff who've written the best songs.

[Fingers]

He would be dead if he didn't get sober-if the books helped him, god bless him-I'm sure his family could care less if he could write a decent song

[Albert S Miller]

Duff is a great, great person, no matter what inspires the man, I love all that he is about. 

Two weeks ago here in the Seattle, Tacoma area of our state four police officers were innocently shot while doing morning paperwork at a local coffee shop, when a man walked in, shot and killed all four.

I believe it will be on the 15th or so of December Duff and "Loaded" will be playing at the "Snoqualmie Casino" to raise funds for the families of the lost officers. 

Bless you Duff for opening your heart in such a great time of need.

Sorry to be off topic here did not realize there was a thread in place for my post.

[dont_damn_me]

He would be dead if he didn't get sober-if the books helped him, god bless him-I'm sure his family could care less if he could write a decent song

Well put....I consider Neaurotic Outsiders and his first solo album  Believe in Me to be some of the best post GNR.

Sicks a good album, few amazing timeless songs, No More being my personal fave.

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

He read all these great books, but he couldn't write a decent song...(post Guns)

Damn.

Dont suppose you've heard a little album entitled Sick that was released earlier this year. Or maybe a little further back, Neurotic Outsiders? Beautiful Disease?

I have.

Didn't hear anything that would make me want to listen to those CD's again.

[FunkyMonkey]

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

[FunkyMonkey]

Seattle Weekly Extra:

Duff's Been Listening to (and Watching) Lots of Nirvana

By Duff McKagan Tuesday, Dec. 22 2009 @ 11:05AM

​This week, instead of just highlighting three songs, may I recommend Nirvana's entire catalog--especially the 'Live At Reading' DVD.

Last week, I had the chance to watch this new DVD at a friend's house. Usually I am not that into live DVD's, as I find the actual live experience much more satisfying (duh). Plus, live DVD's can be doctored with extra studio overdubs and other stuff.

However, my friend put this DVD on; and in an instant, I was mesmerized.

The Reading gig really shows this band at its best, and the sound and visual quality is awesome! The mystique of the band actually is enhanced by watching this show, as it is hard to believe how these guys could be so damn good with only three instruments. It's astounding, really.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2009/12/duffs_been_listening_to_and_wa.php

[FunkyMonkey]

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