Seniors Rock

Last night, I saw Neil Young (1945) and his longtime band, Crazy Horse perform at Madison Square Garden.  Patti Smith (1949) opened the show. I hadn't been to a big stadium show in 14 years. But it was A's anniversary gift to me this summer.

I just have to say that the seniors really rocked it. At 67, Neil sounded the same and moved the same as he does here in this clip from 1991. It was exciting to see. (Also, the stage setting was the same as it is here. Big Crazy Horse banner. Loved it.
I've seen Patti Smith here in New York three times. Twice for free. She's the most reliably generous performer I've ever seen. Down-to-earth Jersey girl. Gives the people exactly what they want.
 I've always had a secret wish to be a rock star, but for this life, I'll have to be content to be a super attentive and appreciative rock fan.

Fiction Large

All of the fiction writing I'm doing this summer is directly influenced by (Mormonism) and rock music.  I'm not sure it works.  I'm worried about the pop cultural references (I had an influential creative writing prof tell me once that they did not work), but all my favorite lit fiction references rock music in some way (real or invented) and/or takes rock music and culture as its central subject.  I'm thinking Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Good Squad, Dana Spiotta's Stone Arabia, Nick Hornby's Juliet Naked, Denis Johnson's Jesus Son, Thomas Pynchon's Vineland (and Inherent Vice), Don Delillo's Great Jones Street, Tom Perrota's The Wishbones . . . .

Whether it's good or not, I'm having a lot of fun with what I'm doing. (And isn't that Cameron's point, Lara?.)

This afternoon, I was in Soho and wandered into Housing Works Bookstore Cafe where, on a table, I saw a copy of the memoir written by a singer, Storm Large, who led a popular Portland rock band and then did well on a cheesy reality show I watched avidly six years ago:   Rock Star Supernova.  (Anyone?)  The show was all about finding a lead vocalist for an already assembled rock supergroup made up of members of Guns n' Roses, Motley Crue and Metallica, respectively.  Storm was by far my favorite of the handpicked contestants.  At six-feet-tall, she was a powerful presence.  Her voice was amazing and she exuded a real Amazonian powerful energy. She's who I'd want to be if I ever found myself on stage. This is what I'm attempting in my fiction.

Here's a clip from the show of Storm covering Cheap Trick's "Surrender." Enjoy! And, er, rock on! (Does it mean it's summer when I cuddle up with my computer mid-week and watch six-year-old reality show clips?)

Guns n' Memoirs n' Me

I'm so glad Lara posted about poets behaving badly, because for the past week, I've wanted to post about the '80s rock band Guns n' Roses who were just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, sans original members Axl and Izzy, last Saturday night.

This has all been especially timely for me, as I took Guns n Roses' bass player Duff McKagan's 2011 biography/memoir, It's So Easy, to Arizona last month. This particular copy also happened to be one that I ordered for one of my libraries. The memoir was released not long after I met Duff McKagan at the 2011 Book Expo last May. At the Expo, I stood in his quickly forming book signing line, while pretending I wasn't standing in that line, all the while assuming that Duff would just quickly sign our promotional excepts assembly-line style, but no--Duff took the time to chat. He wanted to know what my work as a reference librarian entailed. I remember this experience as being so rattling I felt like I would pass out; on the surface, however, I remained calm and even tried to be funny. Then I made a super bold move and had his assistant take our photo with my little Android.

I finished Duff's memoir in about three days, but since it's not due back at the library 'til May, I'm keeping it around for awhile to revisit some scenes, like how the fledgling band rented a grimy storage shed for rehearsals in an alley behind the Hollywood Guitar Center, or about how the band hitchhiked from Bakersfield to Seattle to play an ill-fated gig in which Axl tried and failed to burn down the venue, and about Duff's descent into addiction, punctuated by his pancreas exploding. I've read many rock memoirs (Duff's bandmate Slash's, Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx's, the entire band Motley Crue's oral history, and heck--Iggy Pop's bio) and most seem to follow a similar paradigm of early family dysfunction, addiction, crisis stemming from addiction and at long last!--redemption and recovery. (Unless they end in death and then the genre is biography--except for Iggy who is very much alive.) Born the same year as me, Duff's trajectory is particularly compelling because much our respective lives corresponded: we got into the punk/hard core scene around the same time in peripheral cities: his Seattle to my Salt Lake, and we have similar memories of this time--but mine are all Mormonal: chastish and sober, which Duff's stories careen wildly in a lapsed Irish Catholic style. But Duff's story is unusual in that a big part of his recovery includes discovering a passion for academia, (which is where his life parallels mine again, I suppose). A high school drop-out, Duff enrolls in Santa Monica Community College as a 30-something and does well and then completes the courses required for acceptance into the highly selective Seattle University.

Duff rocking the Simon and Schuster booth

Along the way, he marries a supermodel; I marry a musician, and we separately have two daughters around the same time (just like that egghead Michelle Obama, alao born the same year as Duff and me).

Anyway, the above video is from Guns n' Roses' way recent Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Cleveland. The singer's a stand-in for Axl, but what's particularly heartening about this video is the appearance and performance of Guns' original drummer, Steven Adler, who had addiction problems so profound, he was kicked out of a band where four of the five original members had rehab-worthy addiction problems. I don't know if any of you witnessed Steven on the wretched Celebrity Rehab, but he was a mess, his situation seemingly hopeless. Yet in this video from last weekend, he looks triumphant, full of the childlike glee that Duff attributes to him in It's So Easy. This is especially evident at 3:41 and 5:27. I hope you watch, but you probably won't.

A word about Guns and Roses and me: I fell in love with this band the summer term of my last year at BYU. They had the raw, sloppy energy of punk rock and channeled blues like the Stones. Plus, they were pin-up cute and no one on campus looked remotely like them (which is a part of the reason I moved to San Francisco.) I still have the original vinyl of their first release Appetite for Destruction.  That last summer of college, I listened to it constantly, for at BYU, music was my only vice and this record made me feel like my life was a lot more interesting than it actually was (like the poetry of the infamous poets Lara listed on her blog post tonight).

After graduation, I moved to San Francisco and Guns opened for The Cult (whose first album I reviewed in the nascent Student Review) in a modest club down near Market Street. It was my first night in the big city, and I was too overwhelmed to attend. This was Guns nearing their apex: unhinged, hungry and on time. I will always regret not going.