Bassist Duff McKagan established his credentials for Guns N' Roses by dropping acid in sixth grade, contracting gonorrhea in ninth grade, and dropping out long before graduation. Then he went ahead and messed up his autobiography by going sober, raising a family, and returning to his education. Read my review of Duff McKagan's "It's So Easy" @ the American Spectator on how bad living makes a good book.

Bad living makes a good book but a bad bass player. How many of these semi literate rock star jackwagons are publishing books now? Says a lot about the state of our culture when they consistently find an eager audience. This is Tommy Lee asking the question: If Shakespeare was so good why can't I find him at the supermarket?

Duff McKagan is a top ten bass player for me. There's something funky going on in "Rocket Queen" and something punky going on in "It's So Easy." I prefer John Entwhistle and Peter Hook. But he's in the conversation with everybody else.

I think you're right that rock stars publishing books says a lot about culture but perhaps wrong about what it precisely it says. I think our culture still admires in a perverse way the rock star excess but not the rock music. GNR really was one of the last huge rock bands in the U.S. If an "Appetite for Destruction" caliber album were released today it would have a smaller audience because rock has a smaller share (rap, r&b, pop, and country have all cut into it). Though there isn't as much of an appetite for the music, there is for the characters--the Keith Moon-style larger-than-lifers who trashed hotels, imbibed, injested, and inhaled everything, and were known for their lifestyles as much as their music. Shoegazers and dudes dressed in inconspicuous flannel killed rock.

Couldn’t disagree more on the death of rock, Dan. The flannel dudes didn’t kill rock, by flushing the fleas and ticks (Motley, Poison, Gn’R…) out to sea they were helped to redefine and energize heavy music. As imperfect as it was the Nirvana wave gave music a much needed enema; the poser thing was over-played and imploding and it was time for a change. I don’t think heavy metal would be as strong as it is had the grunge thing not happened and cleared out much of the garbage that had been flooding the airwaves for most of the 80’s. Certainly the progressive metal movement would not be as strong as it is right now.

Great thoughts otherwise, many people love to have the image but don’t want to commit to the insano riffs, progression changes, lyrics and aggression the true heavy rock incorporates. Hence the purpose of poser rock and the books created by the likes of Mr. Duff: Plenty of image, cliché’s, the obligatory thousand yard stare of 90% of the people who listen and read this fluffy crap; and none of the hard work. Attitude, musicianship, a functioning musical ear and a readers critical thought not required. Let Duff do his books and what not, they are no substitute for ability. You take Duff, I’ll take those slackers Steve Harris and John Myung and be happy with the trade. I do admire the fact that Duff turned his life around the way he did, that takes resolve and I give him kudos for that. Thanks for the great comments, it’s been a while since I’ve been on your site and I enjoyed seeing that some of the Flynn crew are alive and well.

I'm sorry, but when you turned on the radio and couldn't tell the difference between STP, Pearl Jam, and Hootie and F***ing Blowfish, rock was dead.

You couldn't tell the difference between Hootie and STP? Then again I could rarely (when I took the time to listen) tell the difference between any of the hair bands. Just goes to show you!

I too got tired of the morose flannel crew (as I've stated many times on this blog I'm a fan of more extreme music) and their cliches but that movement served its purpose in turning the attention back toward the songwriting. Of course it fell in on itself from the weight of its own anti-image but that's another story.

Reports that rock is, or ever has been, dead are nonsense.

I'm not sure there was anything worse than Pearl Jam (at least until Oasis came along).

"woah! Woah!" "And the dogs begin to smell her! Woah! Down boy! I'm sorry, he just does this with new people. Down! Bad dog!"

You mean you don't like those lyrics?