10 Things We Do to Fill the Void During the NBA Season
By Duff McKagan Thu., May 16 2013 at 09:17AM  

We Seattleites who are over the age of 15 all grew up with the Seattle Supersonics. And if you were a fan of the NBA and the Sonics (like me), not having a team anymore has left a gaping hole in those months that the Sonics would have otherwise filled … whether a good team or bad.

 
Every May, it seems, the Mariners are trying to figure out if they are going to be a .500 team or not. We patiently take another bite of that apple; after all, those are the Mariners that we love. The underdog. The “it-could-happen-maybe” factor.

In previous Aprils and Mays and sometimes Junes, we had basketball to ease the anxiety of a so-so start of a Mariners season. But these past five months of May, I have found myself trying to fill a void that not having the Sonics has created. Of course we can’t pull for some other NBA team. I have tried to find another team, but it doesn’t work. “Some other team” just ain’t the Sonics. I went to a Clippers game this season — the first NBA experience I’ve had since the Sonics left — and it felt so very weird. I tried to get into it, but in the end, it was just a hollow exercise in sports watching.

The following things have helped, in these laid-bare months, now that there is no NBA in Seattle:


1) Get More Involved With Your Kids. Ah, but my kids are in their teen years. Parent involvement is a contact sport with teens I am finding out, and not unlike trying to pry cement from a sidewalk with a crowbar.


2) Get Marriage Equality All Legal’d Up In Washington State. Check. Next?


3) Legalize Pot. Right. That too.


4) Find A Sonic-Crazy Billionaire Or Two To Bring A Team Back. Right. That too. No city will probably ever see something like we have experienced here in Seattle with Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer thus far. These guys are hell-bent on bringing our Sonics back.


5) Get Into The English Premiership. I’ve tried to get myself into soccer. In England and the rest of the world, they are crazy for it. I try and try again … but alas, it just isn’t the Sonics.


6) Have An NFL Team Go Deep Into The Playoffs. Go Hawks! You have lessened our pain of no NBA in this past year.


7) Cram More People Into The Seattle City Limits. Have you heard of these things called “APodments”? Yes, inside of some of our more congested areas, there is a sort of boarding house clause, an exemption that is now being pounced upon by area developers. Apartments are being built with a communal kitchen and small bedrooms that the leasor can rent to sub-leasers. An interesting idea for the city dweller, I suppose, but the jury is still out on how this will affect urban traffic that is already taxed to the hilt. See also, “micro-apartments.” It’s getting tight in here Seattle.


Help KEXP With Their Move Next Year. We are very lucky to have a station such as KEXP. The music and programs that they air is the true alternative. They have always had vision, and have always been a proponent of local music, while keeping the national and international artists involved. A money-raising venture will be underway soon, to help with their move to a new location in the Seattle Center. This non-profit is a local treasure. Get behind it!


9) Go To Shawn Kemp’s Restaurant Oskar’s Kitchen. Good food and bittersweet memories just a block from Key Arena. The feel of this restaurant is a mix between indie-Seattle and a sport’s bar. Kind of a perfect little joint for breakfast and more. Shawn does show up all of the time too. Get your Sonics fix!


10) Listen To The New Alice In Chains. They are Seattle rock at its best, and the new record is stunningly good. Period.


BRING OUR SONICS BACK!

www.seattleweekly.com/home/946956-129/sonics-seattle-team-nba-mariners-months

Bowie in London
By Duff McKagan Thu., May 9 2013 at 09:01AM


I just arrived back home from a three-week tour. A tour in which I actually circumnavigated the globe … went all the way around it.

 
I did the math on my flight home from London. I played live music, for a total of roughly 15 hours, tops. Not much music played, right? Right.

I also did the ridiculous math for how much a person has to travel to get to these particular locales to play said 15 hours. It goes something like this:


Time on flights: 50 hours (Yes, 50 hours!)

Time at airports and customs: 9 hours

Time in a van: 30 hours (We drove from London to Tillburg, Holland, then Amsterdam, Hamburg, Germany, Cologne, Saarbruken, and Paris, France … and then back to London.)

Time on a ferry: 4 hours

Time on a train: 4 hours

Time in cabs: 5 hours


Okay, so that is about 102 hours of travelling, to rock only those measley … but kick ass … 15 hours onstage. A guy or gal has to love to travel if being in a touring rock (or any kind of music) outfit is your game.

But I have learned to get out and see things. We did a dinner stop in the medieval town of Bruges, Brussels, just because.

I went to that gigantic gothic church in Cologne (Cathedral of St. Peter), and went inside to gaze at the brutal beauty of so much manual labor.

Walked the lanes of the red-light district in Amsterdam.

Strolled through the enchanted streets of the 20th Arrondisment in Paris.

Went to Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey, and the WWII Churchill bunker in London.

And sometimes, you just get lucky when travelling. To whit, the Bowie exhibit in London was showing.

If you are a fan of rock and roll music, it should follow that you are most likely a David Bowie fan; his career thusfar has spanned so many genres (glam, Iggy, film, pop, industrial, etc), it seems impossible that at least one of Bowie’s endeavors was not to a rock fans’ liking.

I had heard talk and murmur about a Bowie exhibit at the V&A (Victoria and Albert) Museum in London. The word on the street was that it was a “must see” for any real Bowie enthusiast or otherwise. Of course, most of us don’t live in London, or get a chance to go there … but I did this past Monday. Let me tell you a few things…

First, Bowie’s exhibit is a multi-media art-history full-frontal attack. It fits nicely, and has as much weight as the “Tudor” and “Religious Iconology” exhibits that are also currently showing at the V&A. The exhibit spans his life from childhood to present, and begins with the view of a child in bomb-trashed England.

Seeing the costumes on display from so many different eras was awesome (Rock Factoid: Slash’s mother, Ola Hudson, designed all of Bowie’s clothes for The Man Who Fell To Earth). The hand-written lyrics to certain songs, and hand-written journals and doodled clothing designs were killer too.

But it was the music that pulsed through the wireless headphones that the viewer gets upon arrival, that really added a jaw-dropping soundtrack to this exhibit. One can easily forget how David Bowie has constantly morphed and challenged his own pop success. A restless soul, who seemingly never did anything twice.

Going to the Bowie exhibit, sort of re-affirmed why I love rock and roll so much. It is, of course, much too difficult to explain in a few words, what this exhibit is. I hope it tours to America.

So now I am back. My ass hurts, and my mind is way too foggy to do much today or probably the next few. My daughter Grace wanted to practice driving the moment I walked through the door, and my dogs wanted to both get on my lap. My other daughter Mae wanted to schedule the next few months with me right then too. My manager needed a reply to about 15 different emails, and I had to sign and scan a tax-extension or some-such thing.

Ah, but life is grand, and I would not change any of this. Not the 102 hours of travel, or the 15 hours of stage time, or getting to see really cool stuff out there on the road. But especially, I wouldn’t change having an epic family and dumb dogs to come home to.


www.seattleweekly.com/home/946877-129/class-body-hours-bowie-london-exhibit

Dreaming of Rock ‘N’ Roll at an Amsterdam Hostel
By Duff McKagan Mon., May 6 2013 at 09:29AM
 
Throughout the history of rock ‘n’ roll, bands from the Beatles to Metallica have played their early gigs in clubs and bars. We all know the story of the Beatles playing that long-standing residency in the red-light district in Hamburg in the early ’60s.

 
I’ve had the experience of playing some of these same clubs. The red-light districts in Hamburg, Amsterdam and elsewhere in Europe are also heavily populated with youth hostels and “backpackers hotels,” cheap and spartan places for young travelers with a Euro-pass to rest their heads. These hostels, and the culture surrounding them, has always intrigued me. Yet I have never stayed in or even been inside one of these places. Until this week. I’m currently on tour with a band that is trying to build an audience and fan-base throughout Europe. We are playing those clubs in those shady areas and red-light districts. (These tours put your mind-frame somewhere between Anthony Bourdain and Fight Club . . . but that is another story).

We played a place called the Winston in Amsterdam last Sunday. The club wasn’t configured to have a backstage room for the band, and on these ancient blocks and lanes, there is definitely no room for expanding these structures. The Winston is directly attached to a hostel (same owner), and our “backstage” room was a room with a bed, some chairs, and a shower—on the 3rd floor of this particular youth hotel.

I guess I’ve had preconceived notions of what these hostels were like, and instead of ripped up walls and urine-stained carpets, we found this hostel to be clean and actually rather arty and yes,  almost classy! What the? The club fed us dinner there in the lounge of the hostel, and the Chicken Kiev and fresh chopped salad was ridiculously good. The music that was getting cranked through the system in the lounge was stuff like the Stooges and Bowie, and good and weird dancey stuff that I have no idea what it was.

I was completely intrigued at this point. What gives? These rooms are cheap, and their lounge was hipper than shit! The joint is clean, and the only rules posted on the room doors, was “have fun,” “don’t be an ass,” and “if you liked your stay, tell someone.” Very communal in the best sense of the word “commune.” I do believe that this place is as close to the punk-rock Utopian dream that us dumb-ass kids were pining for back in the halcyon days of 1981 or so (you know . . . “Fuck Reagan,” blah, blah, blah . . .).

I had the chance to have a chat with an English ex-pat gentleman who ran the joint. It turns out that this particular hostel is part of a chain called “St. Christopher Inns”; with locations all over Europe and the UK. They all have these nightclubs like the one I ate dinner in, and it is a place that I would recommend to anyone actually. Its cool enough for a business traveler, a sight-seer, a youth (I would have been completely floored to have been able to do this as a 19 year-old . . . but I guess I am doing it now sans the Euro-Pass), or just about anyone else.

There must be other chains like this, but for this “Raw Power” listening, poultry-loving, vagabond traveler, the youth hostel in Amsterdam, was a refreshing and energizing look into this whole world. I’ll suggest it to my own daughter’s when they come of age.

www.seattleweekly.com/music/duffmckagan/946822-129/hostel-amsterdam-rock-youth-blah-club

Flying Around the World With Adrien Brody, Sean Penn, and “Doug”
By Duff McKagan Thu., Apr 25 2013 at 11:23AM

 
I am a sensei warrior in the art of jet lag, a master at blending into different countries and cultures. I zig. I zag. I adapt. I can say hello in nine different languages. I’ve learned it all the hard way, from being that dumb American too many times.

I am, indeed, suffering from jet lag as I write this. Flying to Sydney, Australia, from Seattle for two days, and to London via Dubai from there (a 23-hour flight no less), will fuck with your head. Big time.

Sleeping on planes is not my forte, and I get real jealous of those who can. I watch movies. On a 23-hour flight, a guy can watch a lot of movies. But I’ve seen all the new releases available on this Qantas flight. I liked Silver Linings Playbook, Hangover II, and This Is 40, but not enough to watch them again so soon. Instead I went for the “Oscar Classic” menu and the “Art House Movies.” It was awesome.

So without further ado, here’s how to get yourself through a flight from Sydney to London via Dubai:

Start with The Pianist: The movie that made Adrien Brody a star. It’s an epic tale of war-torn Poland and the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw.

A Thin Red Line: I read the book, and this 1999 movie has just about every major male actor of the time, including Sean Penn, Adrien Brody (again), and George Clooney. A great and powerful movie of the Pacific Theatre in World War II.

Dead Man Walking: I can’t believe that I’ve never seen this flick. A murderer on death row (Sean Penn), and a nun (Susan Sarandon) reveal to the viewer an inside view of mortality and diabolical crime.

Master and Commander: Russell Crowe and an HMS warship in the early 1800s makes for perfect long-flight fare.

This is where I landed in Dubai. I had to get off the plane, go through security (seriously), and get back on the same plane. I was too tired to even ask why we did this. Cattle. Moo.

Pentagram: The Bobby Liebling Story: I’ve heard Pentagram before, and was sort of enchanted with the mystique of this band. They’ve been going since 1971, and were more Sabbath than Sabbath, but without the fame and fortune. This documentary was a great find, especially for a major airline to have in its “Art House Movies” catalogue. Heroin and crack addiction, failure, redemption, jail, failure, and redemption again. I want to see Pentagram now . . . if I ever get the chance.

I landed in London at 7 a.m.

I make myself stay awake the whole day wherever I land. I found a hot yoga class to go to in Soho (shocking your body is one way to kick out the jet lag). I’ve never done Bikram yoga before. Risky. I drink an energy drink, and then another. The lady who leads the class has a hands-free microphone strapped to her head, and it’s 105 degrees. I’m seeing trails and raise my hand when she asks if there is anyone new to Bikram. She asks my name through the sound system, I tell her but she gets it wrong.

“Not Jeff,” I say. “It’s Duff.”

“OK, Doug.”

Namaste.

www.seattleweekly.com/music/reverb/946683-129/flight-movies-adrien-art-brody-dubai

On Star Anna, Timothy Egan, and Jackie Robinson
By Duff McKagan Wed., Apr 17 2013 at 12:17PM
 
Before I get to the movie and book picks that I carved out for this week’s column, I want to give a quick plug for Star Anna’s show at the Tractor TONIGHT—yes, Wednesday night!

 
Star Anna plays the Tractor Tavern on Wednesday, April 17.
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If you are local, I hope you already know about our latest and greatest songbird: She’s one part Ann Wilson, another part Patsy Cline, and all parts motherfucker. Tonight’s show is a fundraiser so that she can make a new record. If you’re in town, do the right thing and go. If you’ve never heard of Star and go to this show, you will immediately start telling every friend and near-friend about your new find. She is a local gem that won’t be staying in places the size of the Tractor for too much longer!

OK, readers of this column know I’m a big fan of Timothy Egan, a local author who has found international acclaim writing books about the Northwest (present and past). Here are a couple good places to start:

The Big Burn: As that “radical” President Teddy Roosevelt was nationalizing huge swaths of our U.S. forests and trying to stock them with a few good men and women (the first Forest Rangers) to protect the trees from evil clear-cutting lumber companies, a massive fire-fueled anomaly of a hurricane swept through the inland Northwest. The year was 1910, and there was no such thing as forest firefighters yet. The saga that ensues is an edge-of-the-chair fete of death, survival, heroics, and frustration. This book makes me want to take a driving tour of eastern Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, just to see the remnants of this 110-year-old mega-fire.

Breaking Blue: Spokane was once a burgeoning promised land of wealth and growth. During the American Dust Bowl and Depression, Spokane became a main destination for tons of people looking to start anew with a chance for a job and perhaps even prosperity. But Spokane was also a place run with an iron fist by the law, where graft, prostitution, liquor-running, and burglary were all reserved for the police. If you stepped in the way of any of these vices, you may have gotten killed . . . even if you were another cop. This is a brilliantly written book on a true story that took 55 years to finally come out.

And, finally, do yourself a favor and go see this movie!

42: Jackie Robinson was an American hero. He and Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey were both American heroes. actually, and this movie depicts a dark period in U.S. history, when pro sports had yet to let anyone but whites play. This film is simply beautiful and victorious. My family and I left the theater with our heads held high, and feeling that you know what, we humans just might end up doing the right thing after all. There should be more movies like this. The world would be a better place.

www.seattleweekly.com/music/reverb/946600-129/american-book-local-movie-spokane-star

Duff McKagan Interviews Johnny Marr
The former Smiths guitarist and solo artist talks about going home, Modest Mouse, and David Crosby’s bed.
By Duff McKagan Tue., Apr 9 2013 at 05:47PM
 
Editor’s Note: With Johnny Marr coming to Neumos on April 15 to promote his new album, The Messenger, we dispatched SW columnist Duff McKagan to interview the former Smiths guitarist. It took professionals in New York and Seattle to get the boys in Manchester and Los Angeles together on the phone. Here’s what transpired:
 

Marr: Hey, Duff?

McKagan: Hey, Johnny, how are you?

I’m very well, thank you. How’s it going?

Good. I think we could have just done this, me calling you. It’s pretty official this way, isn’t it?

Yeah, we’ve gotta be guarded. We’re being guarded by those who must be obeyed. But, nice to talk to you, man.

I feel like I know you, dude, because I’ve known [The Cult’s] Billy [Duffy] for so long, and he talks so favorably of you, and I know you guys are mates.

Yeah, likewise, Duff. I guess Billy’s the person I’ve known longer than anyone else. The neighborhood we grew up in was really cool, it was very working-class. We would just know and dissect about everyone who was making a record at the time, and I look back on it now and I think, wow, that was really quite a cool apprenticeship.

You were sort of the anti-guitar hero. I’m just so fascinated by your guitar style. I know Manchester. I know what Billy Duffy has told me. I try to picture you guys in 1979 or whatever. I don’t know what you were listening to to get that sound.

Joy Division were rehearsing in the room above my band, and they were scary guys just to look at because they wore old-men’s clothes. Very austere, grey, thrift-store stuff going on. Haircuts that looked like they just fought the Second World War. That was much scarier than someone who looked like one of the New York Golds or the Rolling Stones. It was so off-paced.

My thing was getting invited to play with other bands, because I had the knack and a certain kind of facility. Certain things came easy to me, I guess, riffs that were going around at the time. Everyone would be trading riffs, almost like currency. If you could play “Rebel Rebel” without sticking your tongue out, that was impressive stuff.

My family was obsessed with records, so as a little boy, my favorite toy was a little toy guitar. So I had a thing for the guitar much younger than all of my mates. I would think about the shape of it and all of that—it wasn’t for the fame and fortune or getting girls or anything, I really just loved this little wooden guitar as a boy. I would always be upgrading that.

Around 11, I was very keen to be able to write some songs on it and put songs together. I think the big influence on my playing was that was the same time I was able to start buying 45s with my money, and I am still obsessive about 45s. Both those things at the same time: being able to hold chords down and buying chart music of the day, which I am still not a total snob about.

What were those 45s?

The 45s were things like “Amateur Hour” by Sparks; “All the Young Dudes” by Mott the Hoople; all the T. Rex songs; and some of the songs by The Sweet, The Glitter Band. I guess in the U.S. it’s called bubblegum, but it was just regular chart music.

I got very lucky because that very commercial music was really based on guitars. There were so many riffs and they followed that commercial single format.

I was very young to start playing, but I was very serious about learning to play. I wasn’t necessarily isolating the guitar part—something done on an organ or a bass line, I tried to play it on the acoustic guitar. Still, when I write or play a song, I’m trying to play a whole record, really. Does that make sense?

It totally makes sense. I grew up in the same sort of big musical family. As a kid, music was just this magical thing.

You’ve moved back to Manchester, is that right?

I moved back from Portland deliberately. I knew I was into writing a big number of songs, which has resulted in this new record The Messenger. The Cribs were still touring, so I was playing with them at that time. I knew when I did get off the road, I would start writing that. There was a very, very kind of faint echo in the back of my mind; I didn’t try to overanalyze, but I recognized [it] as being enthusiasm to sort of catch the vibe that made me excited when I was a schoolboy and performing before the Smiths.

I kind of just—almost on a kind of superstitious hunt—I thought, if I go back to the UK, Manchester particularly, that will get me closer to the vibe.

I went on this intuition that these songs should be pretty exciting and up-tempo, good to play live, [in the] spirit of the sort of things that you liked when you were a kid.

You’ve kept yourself really current. I’m sure that’s not something you’ve tried to do. You’re just doing your thing. I just really appreciate that about you.

Again, you know, something you’ll probably understand as a musician, but when I was invited to play with Modest Mouse, they were complete strangers to me. I took up that invitation somewhat skeptically, because I wasn’t sure if it was going to work.

After all the members convened—it’s a rag-taggle, strange bunch of people with odd kinds of instruments—I was sitting in the middle of the room working on the riffs, and I went: “I don’t know what this is, but I like working with these guys.” That reminded me of when I was a kid—when you’re not good enough to analyze or copy but you just plug in. I like to think that I never really lost that connection with that person.

When I was playing with the Cribs, they came to my studio—which is nice and big in the countryside—but then we went out to the warehouse in the industrial north, because I wanted to write and rehearse there.

When we were moving all the gear into the service elevator together, I was thinking “We’re all the same, we’ll load the gear.” It doesn’t matter how many records we’ve sold, fans we have, or what we’ve so-called achieved. It’s a connection to who you were when you’re younger, and if that’s the main reason you do it, no one can take that away from you.

That’s inspirational. I’m glad you’re around and doing it.

Well, thank you very much, man. How was writing the book? Did you enjoy that? Was it difficult?

It was tough, Johnny. I enjoyed it. It doesn’t sound like you go back in time and think about the old days of when you were 22, and I don’t either. I’ve got kids, and life just goes forward—you don’t have time to think about when you were 15 or when you were 25. Writing about the particular story I wrote about—kind of like how I fell into addiction and my way out—was rewarding, but I wouldn’t want to do it again.

I think I’m going to do it, but I’ll wait a couple years. But I can’t wait too long, ’cause I’ll start forgetting stuff.

You know, I didn’t write the stuff I forgot about. I kept it pretty simple. I didn’t try to dig through old tour books or any of that crap. I just wrote about what I remembered.

I guess [publishers] want me to give a load of dirt . . . obviously I’m not gonna do that. I’ve got a load of stories like yourself. I’ve played with so many different musicians, just casually. Whether it’s David Crosby on the end of his bed or hanging out with Keith Richards, all of that stuff. People are kind of fascinated by it.

I’ll tackle it one day in the not-too-distant future. I wanna do a couple more records, praise God. I’ll get that done, and then I’ll take some time out and do that.

I’d love to hang out and shoot the shit. Also, it’s great for me to speak to someone who doesn’t say, “Hey, when’s your old band gonna reform?”

Johnny, I get the same interviews.

[Laughs] Let’s get together and catch up. I wanna see ya, and all the best to your family. Keep doing it, man. It’s great.

Cheers. Thanks, Johnny.

www.seattleweekly.com/music/duffmckagan/946424-129/johnny-really-think-guitar-duff-songs

Johnny Marr Is Still Just a Kid
Johnny Marr is as relevant today as he was in 1982.
By Duff McKagan Tue., Apr 9 2013 at 05:47PM
 
Once in a while you get to talk to someone or have an experience that positively readjusts your own view of things. My phone conversation with Johnny Marr (the Smiths, the Cribs, Modest Mouse) was one of those experiences for me.

 
 
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Musicians talking to other musicians puts a different slant on the typical interview. It’s not necessarily better per se, it’s just more casual and full of surprises. With Marr, I was much more interested in just how the hell he keeps so current and fresh in his songwriting, and I wanted to know how he came upon his particular style of guitar playing. A “journalist” may have pestered Marr on other more tired topics (“Hey! When are the Smiths getting back together”?).

The interview in these pages, I believe, showcases a man dashing headlong into the still-mysterious and exciting arena of writing new songs and playing with musicians who inspire him. He is as excited about plugging in a guitar now as when he was 14 years old. When Marr talks about being as inspired to make music today as he was as a kid, there’s honest excitement in his voice—not the blasé and predetermined excitement of some veteran trying to simply “pimp” a new record. Johnny Marr is an original, and a damn fine gent.

Marr had been living in Portland for some time during the Modest Mouse run. He jammed with that band because he was completely mystified about what and who influenced them. His wanderlust for musical exploration leads him just as strongly now as when he was a teen taking trains across Manchester to jam with some dudes he didn’t even know.

Moving back home to Manchester in 2010 with his wife and family, Johnny got a large dose of the gravity and familiarity of returning to a place of comfort and invention. The songs for The Messenger were born on his trip home, and now he has been touring with this great band of his. Johnny Marr is the anti–guitar hero—an inventor, an explorer, and a guy who seems to fully “get it” as far as his place in the mix. He is a regular guy with an irregular past. I was glad and honored to have been able to have a chat with this affable and pleasant Manchesterite.

www.seattleweekly.com/music/duffmckagan/946435-129/marr-johnny-guitar-musicians-excitement-music

Egan, Shirer, and a Pair of Classics
By Duff McKagan Thu., Mar 28 2013 at 09:59AM

Yes, I know that my previous reading lists have included a lot more than two books. But, like many people, I read at night before bed. It’s the only way I get to sleep. Sometimes it doesn’t take much before I start to nod off. This method gets me through roughly one average sized book per month. But if the book is one of those weighty, 1500-page doozies, all bets are off. The following books…took a while.

 
Related ContentThe Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, by William Shirer: I have been planning to read this tome for a long, long time. After reading Andrew Nigorski’s Hitlerland about the American journalists inside Nazi Germany in the 1920s and ‘30s, I was stunned by how bellicose toward Hitler one journalist was: William Shirer.

The breadth, scope, detail, and research that Shirer pours into the book is absolutely second to none. Shirer was in Germany as Hitler took over. He stayed there and reported to the rest of the world until 1941 when America entered the war (and he was kicked out). Shirer came back for the Nuremburg Trials and combed through tons of captured Nazi and Wermacht documents and confiscated personal diaries of many of the top German military and Nazi Party brass.

How Shirer assimilated all of this material, and made it such a readable story is really beyond comprehension. But readable it is, and better than any recent novel I’ve read, as we all know that this dark and twisted story, is actually all true. HIGHLY recommended.

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis, by Timothy Egan: This National Book Award-winning book by local author Timothy Egan (Not his first National Book Award; Try The Worst Hard Time), is a page-turning look at treasured and celebrated Native American photographer and ethnographer Edward Curtis. If you are already a fan of Egan’s writing style, then you will know of his gripping and fluid prose.

We will all instantly recognize many of Curtis’ early and beautiful “Indian” photos, but this is the story of how hard Curtis worked to get these shots, and how head-over-heels in love Edward Curtis fell for the plight, wisdom, religion, language, and people of the many, many indigenous tribes scattered throughout the American West, Canada, and the Arctic. Curtis sacrificed his family and livelihood to pursue what he saw as a life’s work: to preserve and archive what was left of the quickly disappearing customs and people who were in North America first.

Another instant Egan classic.

www.seattleweekly.com/home/943179-129/shirer-book-curtis-egan-nazi-american

Before Danko Jones Came Into My Life, I Missed Him So Bad
By Duff McKagan Thu., Mar 21 2013 at 12:00AM


Do you ever come from a live music gig just scratching your head and wondering if rock is lost? I do. But then there are those gigs and bands you see that completely restore your faith, put a little skip in your step, and remind you that every thing is going to be A-OK in the world of rock and roll.

 
I got to spend a couple of weeks in February touring Australia with Danko Jones. They are one of those bands that peeked into my rock consciousness at just the right time. They are the real deal, and are as honest and as no-nonsense as anything I've seen since the Refused concert here last Fall. 


Danko Jones is actually the singer/guitarist's name, but the band plays as such a seething and tight three-piece unit that in the throes of a gig, the beauty of not just watching or focusing on one guy is only realized after the show. It is rad.


Drummer Atom Willard and bass player John "JC" Calabrese are an exceptional driving force behind Danko's impossibly huge guitar sound.


Danko Jones have put out a handful of records since 2002, have toured the world and gained a strong foothold in Europe and Canada. Seattle gets to see them at the Showbox Market on Friday night with Volbeat.


The newest record, Rock And Roll Is Black And Blue, is an ass-kicker. I challenge you to crank up "The Masochist" and "Just A Beautiful Day," and not break a good-god-damn hot sweat.


Danko himself has a radio show in Sweden and Canada, a weekly podcast with an always-irreverent and genuine cast, and writes a column for The Huffington Post. A smart dude with a lot to say.


And yes, I know that I may be a late-comer to all things Danko Jones...but maybe it takes some of us just that bit more of time to see something in its truest light. I finally did. And I'm restored and re-energized.

www.seattleweekly.com/music/reverb/943077-129/duffmckagan

So, Yeah, I Was Kicked Out of a Guns N' Roses Bootleg Shop in Tokyo
By Duff McKagan Thu., Mar 14 2013 at 12:00AM



Flying and layovers are a key component to tours--like the one I just wrapped up through Australia and Japan--where there is no traveling by van or bus. In fact, if you've seen Anthony Bourdain's TV show about layovers in different cities around the world, you have a pretty good idea of what a rock tour is like (if you add a gig and takeout, that is).


One of the first things I do when I travel to a new city is try and discover what the locals do. I'm not too big on the touristy type of stuff, unless I'm with my family. Tourist food and tourist factoids all seem to blend together into a homogenized stew of ersatz nachos and cardboard hamburgers.


From Perth, Australia, to Tokyo, we had a 10-hour layover in Singapore. Singapore sits just 70 miles from the equator, so heat and mugginess are factors if you choose to go out of the airport (which I did). Although a cab into the heart of the city is only $9, you do have to make sure that the area you are going to is open. The area I went to was not "open," so I treated myself to a long and aimless walk in the heat. I finally found a local place to eat, and I was so damn hungry by the time I was served my meal that I will forever love the taste of fishheads over goats' innards (or whatever the hell I ate).


But all this travel talk is really just a lead-up to something that happened when I finally got to Tokyo.

My family was to join me there for the end of my trip. My daughters had never been to Japan, and they were super-excited to go to an area in Tokyo called Harajuku (it has a trippy, Capitol Hill-esque vibe . . . on steroids). The day before they arrived, I decided to cab it over to Harajuku and do a little "recon" of the area so that I could guide us through the maze with as much ease as possible. (I have learned this recon tactic by getting lost with kids in tow too many times. Not cool or fun.)


During my cab ride, my stomach started to rebel from my questionable meal in Singapore the day before. This happens all the time on the road, and my cure-all (passed down from our road-dog forefathers in DOA and Black Flag. No shit.) is salted peanuts. Upon my arrival in Harajuku, I ducked in to a 7-11 type of store and got a nice peanut-and-rice cracker mixture. Perfect for eating and recon-ing on the go!


Harajuku is all connected by alleyway streets lined with themed shops in amazing contrast to each other: punk-rock clothes next to pastel-only skirt shops next to early-'80s NY beat-boy clothing next to a Star Wars store. It becomes obvious that many of the printed T-shirts with band names or Star Wars characters are bootlegs (last time I checked, Skywalker's first name is "Luke," not "Look").


It was in one of these alleyways that I stumbled upon a rock-and-roll (bootleg) T-shirt store. What caught my eye was a Metallica/GNR split-band T-shirt in the front window. Of course, this shirt never existed in real life back in the day, but it got me to further peruse the inside of the store. I was met with a dazzling array of O.G. Guns N' Roses shirts with some "artwork" close to the original and other "artwork" comically missing. Just as I was looking at a skull-guys-on-the-cross GNR shirt (where we all looked more like chimps than dastardly rock-and-roll hellions), I was asked to leave . . . for eating inside of the store.


I was relieved that they didn't recognize me. I rather hope that I look nothing like a skull-chimpy type of rocker. Nope. I'm a rock-and-roll hellion, with salted peanuts . . . on a mission to find the bunny-petting cafe and nail salon and Alice in Wonderland-themed restaurant in Harajuku.


I'm a bad-ass.

www.seattleweekly.com/music/reverb/942431-129/duffmckagan

Screw The Postal Service. I Hope Your Cute Indie Clothes Chafe You All Summer Long
By Duff McKagan Thu., Mar 7 2013 at 12:00AM

www.funnyordie.com/videos/0dadfc1070/the-postal-service-auditions

The braintrust here at Seattle Weekly asked me to respond to the above leaked video. This is my response.


Look man; I didn't even really want to go to the tryout at all. I'm not a try-out-for-a-band type of musician. But it was 2002, and I was going to school at Seattle U., and they DID say that Weird Al was going, too. And, hey, I liked the song. So ...



The Postal Service? Dumb name for a band, I know. I may be coming off as a bit resentful, and maybe I am. They told me that the video they made for this tryout deal was strictly for internal use. They told me no one other than Jimmy would ever see this.

 
Jimmy! You've got it coming, pal. I've heard that most recently you have been training in MMA and visit cross-fit gyms around your 'hood and are generally trying to be a badass. I heard you've put on 30 pounds of muscle, too. Doesn't scare me. I have the dark and ancient martial art of surprise on my side. I'll get you dude. Just like I was surprised by this video clip showing up everywhere on the internet while I've been down here in Australia touring with Metallica, Slayer, Ghost, and ... Slayer!


The guys in those bands keep coming to my dressing room and laughing at me. Thanks Jimmy and Ben. Thanks a lot. Can you even fathom what it might be like to have a demonic guy in a Satan-worshiping band who wears the crown of the dark pope come over and snicker at you every half hour? It ain't cool. I didn't even know an evil pope could snicker! They can, Jimmy and Ben. And that dude from Ghost has been snickering...a LOT.


Oh, and now I am made to understand that you guys are going out and headlining all of the huge festivals this spring and summer. Fuck you guys. Fuck you. Just think how big it would have been if Moby and I would have also been in the band. Yes, dwell on that for a second. Morons.


Whatever. Oooh... The Postal Service is releasing a 10-year anniversary edition of its debut ... ooooh. Indie! Oooh. Who gives a rat's ass? All of those people who bought your records and who are going to attend your shows, probably got free tickets and downloads. Don't get too excited, Jimmy and Ben.


And Death Cab is just a fluke, too. Right, I know it's, like, seven records in....but its still a fluke. You guys probably don't even see it that way, after all of those #1 hits and all. Never heard of a #1 hit band being a fluke? Well, neither have I...but still, that's the way it is. The fall from your fake grace will be hard. Guess who's not going to be there to soften your fall?


Aimee Mann is also crushed that this video leaked. Now you guys have messed with America's damn songstress. Nice work, guys. Nice work.


I hope your cute indie clothes chafe you all summer long.


Good luck getting chicks.

www.seattleweekly.com/music/reverb/942447-129/duffmckagan

My Time In the Bush
By Duff McKagan Thu., Feb. 28 2013 at 12:00 PM

It's been a while since I reported from the road on a rock tour. I am currently in the midst of a 10-day travelling festival tour of Australia called Soundwave. Extraordinary in its pure logistics, and in its' 6th year-now, a finely tunes mechanism.

With something like 60 bands--from Metallica to Garbage, and Lincoln Park to Ghost and Red Fang--the scope of getting all of these bands and their equipment around this huge country in time and in order is mind-boggling by itself.

The highlight of the festival experience so far has been the fellowship between the acts. With so many people in one place at a time, and so many who don't know each other--I have witnessed a great amount of fraternity between bands: Metal dudes hanging out with pop-punkers, and grind-core badasses hanging out EDM DJss and so on.

Soundwave seems to have been able to grow and flourish over these last 6 years because of the obvious care and attention they devote to the fan experience. It's clean, safe, easy to get around, and flat-out friendly. I haven't seen a fight or even a tussle. I'm not sure how exactly the organizer's have managed this...but it is way cool.

Ah, but Australia is a long, long ways away from Europe and the U.S (where most of the music acts are from). The jet-lag factor with just about everyone there in the first few days, was a pretty hilarious thing to bare witness to. (Personally on my second night in-country, I was so out of it from sleep deprivation, that I thought the huge fruit bats in the tree's were monkey's with wings, and that they were surely going to at any time, swoop down and bite my face off. No, I don't drink and don't smoke the crack.).

Our guitar tech, Paul Hutzler, found a fun and informative way to combat his U.S. to Australia temporary insanity. He was Skyping his girlfriend back in Seattle last night, and decided to call local pet stores in Sydney (with a a fake Texas accent no less), and inquire if he could purchase a wombat and "Take that son-of-a-bitch back to Texas!". Paul is not 14. He is 41.

The Soundwave festival itself is a 2-weekend Friday-Saturday-Sunday affair, and so on all of the in-between weekday nights, the festival organizers have put together 'sidewave' shows in pretty much all of the venues--big and small--in the cities that we are staying in. The other night in Sydney, there were something like 13 separate 'sidewave' shows to go to. Red Fang with Kyuss Lives and Orange Goblin? Sure. Lincoln Park with Stone Sour? Check. Perfect Circle? Sum 41 and Billy Talent did a show, as did Slayer and Anthrax. It makes you wonder if a city in the U.S. would not only support a festival of this size, and also all of these stand alone gigs. All of these festivals are sold out down here, and the 'sidewave' shows are either sold-out or darn near close. Astounding really.

Rock and roll seems alive and very well down here in the Southern Hemisphere. It's is truly great to be a part of this whole damn circus, and I shall report back from Japan next week.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2013/02/a_run_through_the_bush.php

Why Do Unthinkable Crimes Make Unavoidable TV?
By Duff McKagan Fri., Feb. 15 2013 at 9:01 AM


Has any one else checked out this Jodi Arias trial that has been showing daily on Headline News? It has hooked me like a fish. It has everything: a brutal stabbing, bondage, sex tapes, religion, the shooting death of her lover, a confession, and the death penalty. CNN's Headline News has found another captivating trial to show daily from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Casey Anthony trial of 2011 must have scored big numbers for Headline News (as they showed that trial every day too), and the braintrust at CNN have seemingly scoured the crime files of the U.S., to bring us this new gem of a murder trial.

Nancy Grace is having an absolute field day with Arias. It is more that apparent that Grace doesn't believe one word Arias has said in court. This isn't a murder trial really (Arias has already admitted , finally, to killing Travis Anderson)--this is a death penalty trial. Nancy Grace wants Jodi Arias dead. And that, too, has been just as fascinating to observe.

HLN makes this all really easy and convenient to watch. Most of us don't have our whole days free to watch a whole damn trial all of the way through...and you don't have to. Just turn on HLN, and they will encapsulate the whole thing for you, about three or four times an hour. The Nancy Grace bits are shown fairly frequently too.

How does a major news outlet like CNN actually choose which cases they are going to highlight? How was it that the Casey Anthony story (her 3 year-old daughter was found duct-taped and dead in a field a block from her house) was suddenly a national furor? These cases are grim and outrageous for sure--but this Jodi Arias case, and that Casey Anthony situation--are, sadly, just two of the hundreds of these types of cases that happen yearly in America.

Do you ever wonder how a jury in a massively high-profile case like this Jodi Arias one, or the OJ Simpson trial, or the Phil Spector spectacle,actually stay hidden from all of this news on the TV? I can't help but be somewhat curious at how they stay away from it all.

This whole thing makes me curious. What makes someone tick who can kill another human being? What goes through someone's head when they are faced with the death penalty or life in jail? How does a lawyer defend someone who may be obviously guilty of a morose crime like killing a child? How does a jury process and act on information that only has hard evidence, and how does that jury 'disregard' everything else?

I guess this all taps into that human trait of watching a car crash or an arrest on the side of a road. We can't help ourselves...and Headline News knows this.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2013/02/why_do_unthinkable_crimes_make.php