Writer & Editor
Sebastian Bach: Kicking and Screaming (Frontiers/EMI)
After being the charismatic frontman for Skid Row in the later wave of hair metal circa 1989-91, Sebastian Bach has kept busy touring, but largely off the radar of current rock music. It’s a welcome surprise, then, that his latest solo effort has plenty of punch. The title track is hook-heavy and throws a deep thrash groove against Bach’s distinct howl-and-growl. Fans of Slave to the Grind-era Skid Row will not be disappointed.
Ratt has never been “cool,” but if you were in junior high in the mid-1980s, you can probably remember when they were “awesome.” After a couple of decades in the musical wilderness, the band — original members Stephen Pearcy, Warren DeMartini and Bobby Blotzer, at least — returns with a new slab of glam metal that could have come right out of 1986.
I read Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt about a year or two after it came out and it is a flat-out great read, even for someone who, like me, followed the shenanigans of Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars when they were high atop the metal heap in the 1980s. Back then I read Hit Parader, Circus, even Groove (I only bought a copy in the summer of ’87 because it had the Crüe on the cover and I wanted to read about Girls, Girls, Girls, which I hadn’t bought yet… the magazine was pretty terrible) and repeatedly watched an interview Nikki did with Paul McGrath of CBC’s The Journal, which I taped on Betamax. I even bought the VH1 Behind the Music feature on them in 199something. I thought I was well versed in what they were up to.
Boy, was I wrong.
I’m not always keen on rock biographies. Some, like The Dirt, which tells the sordid story of Mötley Crüe, is a great if at times unbelievable read. Others, like Two Sides to Every Glory, which chronicles AC/DC’s rise and then ignores most what happened after 1990, leave something to be desired. And I’ll always have a soft spot for Hammer of the Gods, even though I think all the surviving members of Led Zeppelin have disavowed it.
As a sometime book reviewer for the Winnipeg Free Press, I occasionally get to write about a book like this — the autobiography of Guns ‘N’ Roses founding member Duff McKagan.
The following is republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 5, 2011 J7
Even a rock star can feel like a dork.
Guns N’ Roses co-founder and bassist Duff McKagan opens his self-deprecating memoir with his daughter’s 13th birthday party. While trying to stay out of sight so as not to embarrass her by his mere presence, he surprises two partygoers sneaking a kiss.
“My mind rushes through a checklist… of things I was doing at this same age,” he writes: boozing, smoking pot, dropping acid, snorting cocaine, stealing cars, having sex. These kids are just kissing.
Embarrassed, he mutters a quick, “Sorry,” and ducks back into the house.
