Duff McKagan's Column In Seattle Weekly

[Albert S Miller]

I understand your pain Duff, but I do not think the cookies are going to hurt you as you are in prime shape, no more binges though lol..

[FunkyMonkey]

Coming Full Circle in My Extra Innings

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Mar. 4 2010

Last Sunday, I was more than honored to be asked to take part in a show here in Seattle that benefited Haiti relief efforts--honored because of the sheer talent of the other performers that I would be playing a bunch of different songs with.

Where do I start? When Debra Heesh, Jeff Rouse, Mike, and his wife Ashley McCready first came up with the idea of doing a Hootenanny for Haiti, it was going to be loosely based on some acoustic jams that some of us had done together over the last year or so. On top of this, Deb organized a Patsy Cline tribute show at Columbia City Theater last year and enrolled the help of Kim Virant, Star Anna, and Kristen Ward to be Patsy for the occasion. Gary Westlake, brothers Rick and Chris Friel, Ty Bailey (my daughters' piano teacher!!), and Jeff Rouse were the band that night.

I have for the most part been out of town except for two of the hootenanny rehearsals, but I was kept in the loop as the talent pool started to grow outward from this core group. Matt Cameron came in for the cause. Star Anna's band from Ellensburg, too. Stone Gossard and then his old band Brad (Shawn Smith is the most mysterious and powerful male singer out of Seattle . . . period). Tim DeJulio, a local ringer guitar player, came in too. And last but certainly not least, Kim Warnick came out of retirement to sing Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" and fucking killed it!

My new good buddy Mark Pickerel really surprised me with how good a singer he is. I hope people in Seattle realize just how blessed we are with the talent of the musician pool here . . . and the ease of these musicians playing together and appreciating each other. This just does not happen anywhere else.

I had never in all these years played with Matt Cameron or Stone or Shawn Smith. We have all been friends over the years, but more so because we have kids and we do the odd kid birthday together. I told Matt before the show that if I had any regrets at all in my life, it was that I was not more "present" when GN'R toured with Soundgarden back in the early '90s. I was just too fucked up. He told me a great story about when GN'R came to Seattle in 1985 to open for the Fastbacks at the Gorilla Gardens and afterward showed up at the Central Tavern where Soundgarden was playing one of their first-ever shows. Apparently we bum-rushed the stage and asked if we could play on their gear. They wisely said no. I vaguely remember this . . . but only vaguely.

Star Anna is someone who I've heard a lot, about but didn't have the chance to see until our rehearsal the night before the show. She is the real deal. There is a pain in her voice that comes from somewhere deep, a place I dare not ask where it comes from. She will be a talent that we can all say that "We saw her when . . . ". Guaranteed.

Two of my highlights were being able to play Mad Season's "River of Deceit" and Mother Love Bone's "Crown of Thorns." I was absolutely proud to be onstage with Matt, Mike, Stone, and Sean for these. I felt like maybe my life and musical career had come full circle and finally rested somewhere back home, here in Seattle, a place that I love.

I was talking to Mike the other morning and we were reminiscing a bit. We have known each other since we were in our teens. I was playing the "what if" game. What if I had stayed in Seattle during the '80s? Would I have been in Soundgarden, or maybe Mother Love Bone? Maybe. We decided to rest easy in the fact that we all took our own and distinct paths and had somehow come out OK and somewhat successful. For guys like Mike and I, to be here and vertical and breathing at all is a bonus. Some might say a miracle. These extra innings that I call my existence right now are fucking beautiful.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/03/coming_full_circle_in_my_extra.php

[FunkyMonkey]

For Guns N' Roses, London Called Early

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Mar. 11 2010

I am in London this week looking at a bunch of unsigned bands for a new venture that I am part of. It is fresh and fun to see some of these bands: startled kids with huge and hopeful eyes that see a world that is theirs for the taking, energetic, unjaded, and full of piss and vinegar. I need to see this now and again to remind me what music should be all about. It also reminds me of the first time I came over here: It was with GN'R in July of '87, a few weeks before Appetite for Destruction came out.

The year before, we had put out the Live Like a Suicide EP. This fast and furious collection of songs sort of just died everywhere else in the world except for the UK. Unbeknownst to us, a cult following of fans was building over here who were chomping at the bit for any news on the band. When Kerrang magazine sent a photographer to Los Angeles to shoot us for the cover, we couldn't actually believe it. We had received press coverage in L.A. at this point, but KERRANG?! Are you kidding me?

After we finished Appetite and were waiting for its release and tour opportunities, we were approached to go to London and play the famous Marquee club. The only place I had been outside the U.S. was Vancouver, B.C., to play punk-rock shows with my various Seattle bands when I was a teenager. This was BIG! Huge! Magnificent!

I think it's assumed these days that GN'R kind of "broke" straight from the get-go after the release of AFD. Truth is, it took us nearly a year of straight touring before anyone paid attention to us in a significant manner--except for the UK.

An odd clash of circumstances occurred in Britain about a year before Live Like a Suicide came out. Back then and before the Internet, the youth over here would sort of latch on to one rock-and-roll band and identify it as their clarion light. That band was Hanoi Rocks, an amazing group of Finns who had relocated to England and were writing some of the best and dirtiest rock songs. When Hanoi finally came to tour America for the first time in 1985, their drummer Razzle died in a car crash while making a booze run with Vince Neil in L.A. I had just moved to Hollywood, and Slash and I had tickets to that Hanoi gig that never happened. It was an incredibly sad moment not only in rock and roll, but all the way around. Hanoi Rocks never quite recovered.

Flash forward to our gig in the UK, July 1987. After the first Marquee gig sold out in record time, they added a second date. That sold out just as fast, so they added a third. By the time we arrived here (we stayed at a rent-by-the-week apartment because it was much cheaper than a hotel), we were kind of like little mini-celebrities. There were times that people would stop us on the street and they actually knew who we were! It was quite weird, even on a small scale.

I learned to ride the tube [subway] everywhere, and it just seemed that there were great gigs every night we were there. Slash and I went out to a suburb one night to see the Replacements, and got so drunk that we lost track where we were. We caught a tube to somewhere that was not anywhere even close to our apartment in Kensington. We got into a drunken fight when we got to the end of the line, and realized that there were no more trains running and that we didn't have anything close to the amount of money to take a cab. Come to think of it, I doubt we even knew the address of where we were staying; we only knew how to get there from our local tube stop. To this day, I am not sure how we ever got back that night. Did we sleep in the train station? Ah, the luck and providence shown to the young and drunken and foolish!

But the real reason we were here, of course, was to fucking rock. I must say that back in that period of the band's career, nobody did it with more purpose, sneer, and reckless bad intent than us. This is not me bragging--it's just that we were hitting on all the right cylinders at the same time. When we walked to the Marquee on that first night, we were met by the crowd that was in line surrounding the block. We were absolutely fucking amazed that all these people came to see us. We hung out there in the street with them before and after those three gigs. We found that we had suddenly become "that" band that the youth of England had been looking for to fill the void left after Hanoi Rocks' tragic demise. Within four years, we would be headlining in stadiums here.

I am here now as a real grown-up, an adult doing very "adult-like" business and meeting with real-life businessmen. I am glad to be taken seriously in these meetings, and for certain feel that I have earned the right to be doing the things that I do outside of just playing music. Coming back to London, though, always puts a smile on my face. That first 10-day stay here as a young man will forever be a brilliant memory that will always keep me from becoming jaded.

[Ulises]

For Guns N' Roses, London Called Early

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Mar. 11 2010

I am in London this week looking at a bunch of unsigned bands for a new venture that I am part of. It is fresh and fun to see some of these bands: startled kids with huge and hopeful eyes that see a world that is theirs for the taking, energetic, unjaded, and full of piss and vinegar. I need to see this now and again to remind me what music should be all about. It also reminds me of the first time I came over here: It was with GN'R in July of '87, a few weeks before Appetite for Destruction came out.

The year before, we had put out the Live Like a Suicide EP. This fast and furious collection of songs sort of just died everywhere else in the world except for the UK. Unbeknownst to us, a cult following of fans was building over here who were chomping at the bit for any news on the band. When Kerrang magazine sent a photographer to Los Angeles to shoot us for the cover, we couldn't actually believe it. We had received press coverage in L.A. at this point, but KERRANG?! Are you kidding me?

After we finished Appetite and were waiting for its release and tour opportunities, we were approached to go to London and play the famous Marquee club. The only place I had been outside the U.S. was Vancouver, B.C., to play punk-rock shows with my various Seattle bands when I was a teenager. This was BIG! Huge! Magnificent!

I think it's assumed these days that GN'R kind of "broke" straight from the get-go after the release of AFD. Truth is, it took us nearly a year of straight touring before anyone paid attention to us in a significant manner--except for the UK.

An odd clash of circumstances occurred in Britain about a year before Live Like a Suicide came out. Back then and before the Internet, the youth over here would sort of latch on to one rock-and-roll band and identify it as their clarion light. That band was Hanoi Rocks, an amazing group of Finns who had relocated to England and were writing some of the best and dirtiest rock songs. When Hanoi finally came to tour America for the first time in 1985, their drummer Razzle died in a car crash while making a booze run with Vince Neil in L.A. I had just moved to Hollywood, and Slash and I had tickets to that Hanoi gig that never happened. It was an incredibly sad moment not only in rock and roll, but all the way around. Hanoi Rocks never quite recovered.

Flash forward to our gig in the UK, July 1987. After the first Marquee gig sold out in record time, they added a second date. That sold out just as fast, so they added a third. By the time we arrived here (we stayed at a rent-by-the-week apartment because it was much cheaper than a hotel), we were kind of like little mini-celebrities. There were times that people would stop us on the street and they actually knew who we were! It was quite weird, even on a small scale.

I learned to ride the tube [subway] everywhere, and it just seemed that there were great gigs every night we were there. Slash and I went out to a suburb one night to see the Replacements, and got so drunk that we lost track where we were. We caught a tube to somewhere that was not anywhere even close to our apartment in Kensington. We got into a drunken fight when we got to the end of the line, and realized that there were no more trains running and that we didn't have anything close to the amount of money to take a cab. Come to think of it, I doubt we even knew the address of where we were staying; we only knew how to get there from our local tube stop. To this day, I am not sure how we ever got back that night. Did we sleep in the train station? Ah, the luck and providence shown to the young and drunken and foolish!

But the real reason we were here, of course, was to fucking rock. I must say that back in that period of the band's career, nobody did it with more purpose, sneer, and reckless bad intent than us. This is not me bragging--it's just that we were hitting on all the right cylinders at the same time. When we walked to the Marquee on that first night, we were met by the crowd that was in line surrounding the block. We were absolutely fucking amazed that all these people came to see us. We hung out there in the street with them before and after those three gigs. We found that we had suddenly become "that" band that the youth of England had been looking for to fill the void left after Hanoi Rocks' tragic demise. Within four years, we would be headlining in stadiums here.

I am here now as a real grown-up, an adult doing very "adult-like" business and meeting with real-life businessmen. I am glad to be taken seriously in these meetings, and for certain feel that I have earned the right to be doing the things that I do outside of just playing music. Coming back to London, though, always puts a smile on my face. That first 10-day stay here as a young man will forever be a brilliant memory that will always keep me from becoming jaded.

Good for him. Seriously, sometimes past condemn you, do not forget that today is a "serious" businessman but in the past he was seen all over the world drunk, rocking in a rock n' roll band. It wouldn't be that easy to put aside all these kind of things and change the image that people have of you.

Always liked Duff. Nice guy. Good for him.

[metallex78]

That's cool that he mentions him and Slash seeing the Replacements back in the day as well. Wonder if Duff ever thought back then that Tommy would end up taking his place in GN'R years later...

[Albert S Miller]

Duff you have worked hard at a clean and sober life, you are the one who made it happen for yourself and you deserve every ounce of respect you get, hell you even deserve great respect from back then, even when life was so much crazier and unsettled, after all you were the bass player for one of the biggest rock n roll bands, and you did it well.  Thank you

[14 Yrs Of Silence]

That's cool that he mentions him and Slash seeing the Replacements back in the day as well. Wonder if Duff ever thought back then that Tommy would end up taking his place in GN'R years later...

Do you really think there's even the slightest of remote chances that Duff thought to himself back then, hey, I bet Tommy Stinson is going to take my place in GN'R in 10 years?   

[metallex78]

That's cool that he mentions him and Slash seeing the Replacements back in the day as well. Wonder if Duff ever thought back then that Tommy would end up taking his place in GN'R years later...

Do you really think there's even the slightest of remote chances that Duff thought to himself back then, hey, I bet Tommy Stinson is going to take my place in GN'R in 10 years?   

Not at all, I just think it's cool that he saw his future "replacement" performing back in the day.

[FunkyMonkey]

Seattle Weekly Extra:

Duff McKagan: I've Been Listening to My Passion, General Fiasco, and Marina and the Diamonds

Yep, just back from London and saw some really cool new bands. I wrote a bit about how that town makes me feel in last Thursday's column, so I won't repeat. Check these out!

My Passion, "Paper Dragons": Check out their new video after the jump. Great band!

General Fiasco, "Buildings": I saw this band last Wednesday at a little club in Islington. General Fiasco are three lads from Belfast that remind me of the Jam in their early days.

Marina and the Diamonds, "Hollywood": The next 'big thing' from the UK. Smart pop music with a nice dash of bratty-ness!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/03/duff_mckagan_ive_been_listenin_6.php

[FunkyMonkey]

Happy Fishing, Slats, My Old Friend

By Duff McKagan, Friday, Mar. 19 2010

Slats and I did not have a boat. But he had a car.

On the southern border of the University of Washington campus lies its school of aquatic and fishery sciences and its salmon hatchery. Slats thought it a brilliant idea for us to hop the fence there with a bucket and simply scoop up salmon at will so we could clean 'em, freeze 'em, and eat salmon for weeks. Everything worked according to plan, and we had a bunch of flopping salmon in a big bucket when the floodlights went on and the night watchman came chasing after us.

I told Slats to just drop the bucket, but he was having none of it. He somehow scaled the fence with that damn thing. One of the funniest memories I will ever have is of him driving the car back to my apartment with his left hand and punching those flopping salmon in that bucket with his right. He had a running commentary with those fish all the way home, saying they almost got us into big trouble and now they would pay the ultimate price.

I have written before that I have borne witness too many times to the hopeful glint in a person's eye being whisked away by agents of vice. My time as a teenage musician in Seattle seemed to coincide exactly with an influx of wave upon wave of heroin to this port city.

The person who personifies this best to me is a young man, back in the '80s, with a hopeful glint and so much more. He was probably the funniest and most charming guy I'd ever met. Chris Harvey (aka Slats) died last Saturday of complications due to a broken hip. Unfortunately, drugs had claimed him long before, and held him. This is not meant to be a crude or heartless comment directed at a man who is no longer here to defend himself. I loved that guy like a brother once upon a time, back when the playing field of youth was even and green and soft and we were just opening our eyes to what was possible and available in life.

He was a guy who all the rest of us guys wanted to be like. He had the good looks and charm that all the girls fawned over. He never gloated or preened in his status as the coolest guy in the room, and that very thing made him seem even cooler.

I'm not sure how or when I initially met Slats, but it must have been some time in 1980, when we were both either in bands or trying to start one. After we met, though, we became fast and all-of-the-time friends. We started our first band, the Zipdads, together with Andy Freeze from the Vains and Scott Dittman from the Cheaters.

The Zipdads was really more a lifestyle than a musical statement. Sure, we played a bunch of shows here in Seattle and up in Vancouver, B.C., but it was the fun we had together that really set us apart and what other people and bands wanted to be a part of. Slats was always the instigator at the center of that fun.

His mom, too, was so supportive of her son, and would have us over for dinner at their place in Montlake. We would pick up his Gibson SG and Fender amp, and he would always speak highly of his mom even after we left the house. Most teenage boys would find SOMETHING to gripe on their parents about--but not Slats. I always admired that.

He always had the smoothest of smooth one-liners for girls wherever we went. I had no idea where he got his vast repertoire--maybe he just made that shit up on the spot--but girls fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Slats never was one of the most skilled guitar players, but he somehow crafted his own sound back in our day. When he formed the Silly Killers in 1982, his sound and sense of songwriting were really starting to take shape. Their 7" single, "Knife Manual," is a classic. I don't think it was too much longer before he started to dabble with heroin. He never found his musical form again, and that is sad.

I had seen him around at Loaded shows and elsewhere over the past 10 years, but always tried to avoid him because our paths had grown too far apart and I was frankly dubious and protective of my life, not being a good friend. To be honest, I don't know what we would then have had to talk about. But I could have tried. I should have tried.

I'm so sorry, Mrs. Harvey, from all of us, for the loss of your precious son.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/03/happy_fishing_slats_my_old_fri.php

[FunkyMonkey]

I had seen him around at Loaded shows and elsewhere over the past 10 years, but always tried to avoid him because our paths had grown too far apart and I was frankly dubious and protective of my life, not being a good friend. To be honest, I don't know what we would then have had to talk about. But I could have tried. I should have tried.

I'm so sorry, Mrs. Harvey, from all of us, for the loss of your precious son.

That must have been really hard to write.  Very sad.

[LunsJail]

Very sad. I do love reading Duff's columns though.

[CheapJon]

I had seen him around at Loaded shows and elsewhere over the past 10 years, but always tried to avoid him because our paths had grown too far apart and I was frankly dubious and protective of my life, not being a good friend. To be honest, I don't know what we would then have had to talk about. But I could have tried. I should have tried.

I'm so sorry, Mrs. Harvey, from all of us, for the loss of your precious son.

That must have been really hard to write.  Very sad.

yeah that was heavy

[Smoking Guns]

Duff is so humble and so down to earth..  I don't have a negative thing to say about the guy, and that took guts to type what he did.  Very sad.

[FunkyMonkey]

Remembering My Favorite Cuts From Kurt Bloch's No Threes Records

By Duff McKagan, Monday, Mar. 22 2010

When writing last weeks article about Slats and his untimely death, I started to reminisce a bit about the first wave of punk rock in Seattle. One man, Kurt Bloch, seemed to have a vision early on then, and started his own little record label that put out about 5 singles. Yes, before there was a 'Sub Pop' records, there was Kurt's No Threes record label. Here are some choice cuts that you all can find out there in digital form somehow these days.

The Accident, "Kill The Bee Gees": Bellingham's The Accident were very reminiscent of the day's Vancouver sound, bands like DOA, The Modernettes, and The Subhumans. I loved this single when I got it at 14 years of age or so.

Silly Killers, Knife Manual: These guys were the bomb live. 'Knife Manual' is great for sure, but try to find all four songs from this 7" EP if you can.

The Fastbacks, "Someone Else's Room": Great pop from the best.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/03/remembering_my_favorite_cuts_f.php

[Albert S Miller]

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/03/yes_i_got_a_book_deal.php

Duff McKagan
And, Yes, I Got a Book DealBy Duff McKagan, Thursday, Mar. 25 2010
 
Duff McKagan's column runs every Thursday on Reverb. He writes about what music is circulating through his space every Monday.
​I am not sure if any of you have heard the rumors about me getting a book deal. I just wanted to announce here first that it is in fact true. The reason for any announcement at all is twofold, actually:

1. Most important, I want to thank the readers of my column for really pushing me to write this book. Those constant suggestions and prodding really made me take a look at what I was saying, and indeed at how I was writing it. The Weekly staff have also been invaluable to me--certain editors here have made a big difference as far as what they expect from me. That too makes for a better product.

2. I want to also make clear that this book is not a GN'R "tell-all" or some other such "rock" book. There are a lot of those at this point. Sure, I will touch on all of that, as it is part of my story, but only just a part of it. Rather, it will be a story of an ordinary guy who met with extraordinary circumstances, and the circumnavigation through these situations. If you have been a reader of my column, then you get the general idea of my headspace. I WILL be writing this myself, thick or thin.

Touchstone, a division of Simon and Schuster, will publish my book in Fall 2011. Stacy Creamer, Touchstone VP and Publisher, will be my editor. I am excited that Tim Mohr, my old editor at Playboy, will be joining me too on this challenging venture and chapter of my life. Tim has edited the likes of Hunter S. Thompson. I look forward to him throwing out thousands of my words and telling me that I am full of shit on a daily basis!

[FunkyMonkey]

A Dork Among Hipsters

By Duff McKagan, Thursday, Apr. 1 2010

This week I am down in L.A. My wife and kids are away for the first part of spring break while I had to stay back and put in some work. But this is all OK. Sometimes it is cool to be a lone wolf and a solo-riding bad-ass. The "hunter/gatherer" in us men at times needs to range free and howl at the moon. In my case, this is true--as long as I am home by 11:30 so I can call my wife before she goes to bed. And yes, uh . . . well, my dogs get lonely when I am gone too long . . .

I am not a guy who goes out a whole lot these days. When I am out on tour, I am basically at a gig every night. The last thing I want to do for the first couple of months after getting home is go out to another gig or show. Does that make sense?

By chance, though, two of my good friends were playing shows down here this week AND another friend was having a big birthday sort of bash. That meant I was going to go out three whole nights in a row. I didn't have to get up at 7 a.m. with my daughters, so what the hell?! I was IN!

I love to see good live music, and do what I can to support local and new bands. There were and are those who did and still do the same for me in my career, and I will never forget that. Some of you even read this column on a regular basis.

Some of you may know of Ryan "Go Time" Moore, Loaded's all-of-the-time drum tech and shot-caller (check out Go Time TV on YouTube to get a better sense of the genius that is Go Time). Ryan is a Portland dude, and has most recently been playing with the psychedelic, New Orleans-influenced MarchFourth Marching Band. They are on tour right now and played this past Sunday at a club, so I headed down. Sometimes when you go to see a friend's band, it can get a little uncomfortable if it maybe sucks or is otherwise not to your particular taste. I was, however (thankfully), completely blown away by this show. If anyone has a chance, definitely go see them in Seattle April 9 at Honk Fest West in Georgetown.

The following night, Monday, I went to see former Loudermilk and current Loaded drummer Isaac Carpenter's new band Sea Spin at the Silver Lake Lounge. For those of you who don't know, the Silver Lake section of L.A. is home to only the hippest and coolest of the cool. It seems that there is a conscious effort in that part of town to perhaps even shun a "rock" guy like myself. No worries--I had Go Time in tow, and we polished the tops of our shoes to get a better view of our eventual focus for later that night (get it? shoe-gaze?). Again, I was really quite pleasantly surprised. Sea Spin reminds me of early My Bloody Valentine with a somewhat current twist. Really good! As I left that night, I really felt like a cool and relevant hipster with his finger on the pulse of all that was Silver Lake. I even got a "dude nod" from some of the guys hanging out on the sidewalk as I walked out. I am fucking cool!!

Tuesday night I was invited to a friend's birthday party at the ultra-chic Les Deux in Hollywood. I was too afraid of blowing my cover to ask for the address, though. You're just sort of supposed to know where this place is. If you don't? Then don't even bother. But there I was, the guy calling 411 and asking for an address. I had to try about four different spellings before I got it right.

As I walked up to the doorman, my phone rang. It was my wife asking if I'd fed the dogs and if I was wearing a coat and if I was taking my vitamins and drinking enough water. She loves me. I had to, however, tell her that I had to get off the phone because I didn't want to look like THAT guy--you know the one, the douchebag on his phone going to the door of the cool club. I told her I loved her--in a hushed tone, of course. Yes, you ARE my monkey! Yes, dear, the girls ARE our monkey babies. Yes, babe, the dogs are our monkey grandchildren. "Yes, OK . . . I love you too!" It was time to go be a bad-ass in the mean streets of Hollywood. A master of all he surveys. A man among men. Actually, a dork among the hipsters. But that is indeed OK. My dogs are none the wiser.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/04/a_dork_among_hipsters_1.php

[CheapJon]

wonder why he didn't say it was perry farrels birthday bash

[Lady Ashba]

Maybe is cos of all this Jane's Addiction rumor going on, don't know.

Btw is funny and great how he mingles his married life with being a rock star 

[FunkyMonkey]

Those Old GNR "Rivals," Jane's Addiction

By Duff McKagan, Monday, Apr. 12 2010

There was a band that was playing around the LA clubs at the same time as my band, GNR. In 1986, both bands seemed to reign somewhat supreme. It was a good time for music as BOTH bands were really quite aggressive and original. Word was that we were rivals and all of that hooey. Maybe we were. I don't really remember it like that though. The band was Jane's Addiction:

"Ted, Just Admit It ..." : Many know this song better as 'Nothing's Shocking'. It's a crazy trance-like dub bass and drums crossed with a wailing vocal and searing loud guitars. A masterful song.  Listen at the link:

"Up the Beach,": Ah, the beauty of a soundscape. Maybe my favorite Jane's 'song'. Listen at the link:

"Pigs In Zen,": A mix between Thin Lizzy and "Black Leather" by Steve Jones (think about it). Great JA nonsensical song structure that somehow makes sense in the context of this song.  Listen at the link:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2010/04/those_old_gnr_rivals_janes_add.php