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Last weekend I went to a show at The New Frontier. It reminded me of those days of my youth when music from the NW was all still our little secret. My good friend (and everybody's favorite German) Niels told me if I could find a sitter, he would be at
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I was truly hoping 2011's arrival might be accompanied by at least a trace of lightness - lightness that seemed to be thanklessly missing throughout 2010. Taking stock, and looking back, 2010 was awful from the 72 hours that preceded its arrival, and spilling all the way into the first
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There had been talk of international touring on the strength of the Guns ‘n' Roses fame since almost the moment Duff McKagan and I started playing together. While it seemed like a no-brainer, and I was certain it COULD happen, if I had learned one lesson in the music business
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We were five guys who loved rock, but there were certainly other passions in the van. Literally. Johnny and the previously mentioned guitar tech, Brian Roe, had each brought their fly-fishing reels. At some point in the first few hours of day one, the tour manager/sound guy promised our fearless
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In honor of the newly reformed New American Shame, here starts a two-part story about the very first day of the band's touring experiences. We were on our way. Figuratively and literally. Interstate-90 east to Chicago - to start our first tour. If Day One in the van was any indication,
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New American Shame began at a time of rap-rock and post-post-grunge. The music is a throwback to a time when girls, cars, beer and parties were all you really had to worry about. It seemed to resonate with a lot of people, and, at the time, only
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EDITOR'S NOTE: See, the thing is, drummer Geoff Reading - yes, of the band New American Shame - kinda sorta writes for the Volcano's Website on a regular basis. Like, he has a weekly column. With New American Shame set to reunite Sunday at Hell's Kitchen as part of the
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In January of 1999 I got this killer job working at Amazon.com. Customer service. On the phones. It started out with a 10-week full time training course. I was the only person in my 30 person training class without a four-year degree. I had an in, though, and I am
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Green Apple Quick Step had finished up a show in Portland with Ten Minute Warning - bar closed, gear all packed up in the van. The Ten Minute Warning crew was long gone, but we were still there. With us, there were a few stragglers. Drunk stragglers. Which is certainly
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The musical connection had been there from the very start. At the conclusion of our first jam session, Duff called around the city to find an available recording studio. A new online music store had approached him to contribute a song to their catalog. The rock had gone so well that
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The spring and summer of 1999 was (finally) what I had always dreamed of: touring and getting paid to be in a working rock 'n' roll band. Honestly, the images in my head I chased with a deaf, dumb and fevered tunnel vision were never of selling out stadiums
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The last tour New American Shame embarked on before the band's premature retirement was playing the opening slot for headliners Megadeth and main support band Static X on a week's worth of shows in the Midwest. None of us were huge fans of either band, but we were certainly thankful
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I had known Kelly Wheeler for less than five minutes when he saddled me with the nickname "Meat." It was Valentine's Day, 1999. I was trying out for Jimmy Paulson's new outfit, New American Shame. Paulson always seemed to end up with record deals, and NAS had already been making
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Nearly ten years after I had located, been accepted, and been labeled by the first in a lifelong quest for surrogate families, I took a job aboard a commercial crabbing vessel working out of Dutch Harbor on the Bering Sea. The vessel was called the Pavlov. Growing up in the
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So far in my life I've had three nicknames (at least ones people called me to my face). Each nickname, however personally loved or loathed, made me feel a very special belonging to a group, gang, or team - a feeling I spent my youth and early adulthood always
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Link to previous installment. Part Two Indeed, Deception Pass Marina was scenic and picturesque, but definitely closed. As we sided up to the dock, we saw one other occupied craft. It was an Emergency Response boat - a big red thing with a lot of obvious wear reflecting many a trip
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Last week, as the boy and I were taking in the epic Puget Sound view from the swimming pool at the fancy Tacoma home of my new favorite "tragically too young love story with a happy ending years later" couple Ty and Rachel, the subject of personal watercraft trips
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The other day I was talking to my only "close-as-family" friend, who is also a cancer survivor. He's a good 15 years my junior and has a crush on a girl. He told me the constant of someone being in his thoughts amused him in a way he felt only
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I had talked to maybe two strippers in my first 31 years of life. In Washington State, no alcohol is allowed on the premises of ANY establishment where there is nudity - until recently, not even in a movie theater. I'm, by nature, a pretty hands-on person. Also - in
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It has been a year since death entered my life. I had, of course, come to terms with the possibility of my own demise a couple years prior, which is certainly an encounter with the finality. But being left behind by someone I had a future with, whose being was
