62 replies to this topic

[AxlsMainMan]

And everyone gave Axl such a hard time for Chinese' taking forever

[TAP]

New Loaded album is rockin'

[Mr. Roboto]

New Loaded album is rockin'

I need to pick it up, I loved "We Win."

[lynn]

Duff McKagan
A Walk Back Home

By Duff McKagan, Thu., Apr. 21 2011

Going back in time is just not a thing I spend a lot of time doing. Nor is keeping "current" with everything around me something that I strive for. I have kids, so that naturally keeps a parent's headspace in the here and now. I have had "new" rock bands over the last 15 years, too, and this keeps my striving for a current musical "voice" somewhat relevant, I hope. Or is that it?
Last Friday, I was invited to the opening of the new Nirvana exhibit at the EMP here in Seattle. I am a fan of the band, and understand and totally respect the sheer weight that the band had (duh). But I am one of those guys who has never been into seeing a guitar or drum kit or item of clothing that some historical rock artist played or wore. That kind of stuff just doesn't have much parity to the live rock experience for me. So in saying that, I wasn't quite sure just why in fact I found myself in my car driving down to the EMP during rush hour last week.

Seeing a band live has always been the "thing" for me. When I was young, and music was either on the 12" or 7" vinyl format, finding a new band at the record store was just too damn exciting. Punk rock had a young and small-but-mighty little scene in Seattle. Flyers on telephone poles around town announced whenever and wherever there were gigs. Often times, I would buy a single by some band, and I would see them play a show downtown somewhere within the same month or two. There was no Internet. There were no cell phones. It was all word-of-mouth and what you might read in some rare but hard-won fanzine like Maximum Rock 'n' Roll or Punk or Sniffin' Glue.

I kind of forget about this time. Well, I mean, that era still does everything for me in the most base way. I think of that energy then, and it still pushes me on to this day. In playing live shows, writing songs, being a dad, being a husband. "Punk Rock" to me is just truly about being honest, upstanding, and virtuous. Period.

So I walk in the EMP. In front of me is a stage where various dignitaries and financial backers are speaking about the exhibit. They are about to unveil it at any moment. I'm just kind of standing there, and I suddenly notice that the whole walk-through Nirvana exhibit is to my left. Empty. No one has gone through yet. I make my way over as I feel an odd pull.

On the wall is a display of records that Kurt or Krist or Dave all probably listened to in the early 80s: Black Flag's My War and the Germs' GI, among others. The same records that I listened to. Seeing those record covers on the wall brought back amazing memories.

On another wall was a sort of tapestry made from all of those local punk-rock flyers that I also have in a box somewhere in my attic. If those records were the soundtrack of my youth, then those flyers were the artwork that informed my young visual journey. An absolutely stunning moment there, suddenly, and out of nowhere there at the EMP, I was transported back in time.

I feel so damn fortunate to be playing gigs to this day. Those experiences in my youth still inform my whole being. Every time I get on a stage, I suddenly and instantly turn into a seething and drooling punker. I'm the luckiest man in the world to have had those early imprints that filled my cupeth to overflow.

I came out of that exhibit, and there was Ben Sheppard and Kim Thayil. Two friends that I know share a lot of the same experiences from our youth. Those dudes are still as real as it gets because of it. I was glad to see some guys right then and there who could somehow bring me back to the present . . . without talking about the past.

Have you ever just had one of those days, where you are just plain glad it happened? That was my day last Friday. Punk rock is alive and well on the insides of your author. Long live!

http://blogs.seattle...k_back_home.php

[lynn]

Cinema Verite and Debunking the Myth of American Innocence

By Duff McKagan

Thu., Apr. 28 2011 @ 9:24AM

I am a product of the '70s. To this day, a lot of how I think and act out on different scenarios are informed by the barrage of childhood imprints that happened during that decade. FM radio. The Vietnam War. Punk rock. The Nixon impeachment. PBS television.
Television, for me as a kid, was not at all the babysitter it is now; there just weren't that many good shows and only five channels back then: CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and a local channel that played reruns of older shows. Going outside was just a funner and better option then.

Daytime network TV was filled with soap operas, much as it is now. But there were some forward-thinking exceptions in the day, like the weirder-than-weird Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Nighttime network TV was just then experimenting with the "mini-series" concept--great events like Roots, Rich Man, Poor Man, and The Thorn Birds came to form in this arena.

But PBS was always the sort of go-to place if you wanted something different. I guess it kind of still is, but there are just so many channels now that PBS just kind of gets thrown into the drone and hum of it all. But in the 1970s, Monty Python, Benny Hill, and The Saint were all very exotic TV shows. A chance to really escape to places with a different humor, or simply a different accent than our American one.

Just this month, HBO has released a new full-length movie called Cinema Verite, starring Diane Lane and Tim Robbins. The producers of HBO have decided to sort of re-examine a 10-part documentary that PBS released in 1973 called An American Family. The original documentary planted a camera crew inside the home of a rich, seemingly decaying, Santa Barbara, California family. It was supposed to expose the viewer to the REAL America "behind closed doors." The first reality show, one could say.

I remember the TV event being something of shock to the American system back then. But at the age of 9 or so, I was obviously too young to really be able to understand the documentary and its multilayered complexities. From the outside, Bill and Patricia Loud and their kids (aged 16 to 21) seemed like a West Coast counterpart to the Kennedy's Camelot: rich, good looking, and seemingly very happy. In reality, Bill was having numerous affairs, Pat was drinking herself into a dark and lonely corner, and the oldest son Lance was celebrating his homosexuality on camera, as his parents put on blinders to it all. Really quite fascinating.

The late 1960s and early '70s was a time in America when the innocence of the smiling and tanned superpower nation finally woke up and smelled the napalm which it was socially mired in. If you weren't around yet to understand the transformation of the '70s, catch HBO's Cinema Verite for a peek inside.

The interesting inside view that Cinema Verite shows is how the lead producer of An American Family probably manipulated the situation with the Loud family to get as much drama as possible.

You must understand that this documentary was meant to be observation in its purest form, and the camera crew and producers were supposed to be an invisible element inside the home and in the Loud family in general. The producer may have done things like push Pat to ask Bill for a divorce on camera, and perhaps even pushed Lance to act as gay as possible when the cameras were rolling.

We all know these days that "reality shows" are often far from "real," but back when An American Family began to air, the Loud family went into complete shock at what they saw.

I don't usually give movie reviews here in this space, but this HBO film really got me thinking, and gave me some scope and history to real situations being filmed on TV these days.

Enjoy!
http://blogs.seattle...verite.php#more

[lynn]

Can We Now Get Back to Being Human?

By Duff McKagan, Thu., May 5 2011

By now there is scant little that I could possibly add to the actual detail of the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. Well, nothing at least, that hasn't been said or printed hundreds of times by now.

This column of mine started a couple of years ago with me writing from a more personal slant. I write about things like mountain climbing, rock tours, being a dad, and flexing the fact that I am a bad-ass (in spite of the fact that my wife always wants me to get a gallon of milk on my way home--even though I may very well be on my damn Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle).

I've been getting away from some of these personal stories in the last few months. Sometimes it is because I have been too busy. Other times, because I just don't feel that I have anything of substance to offer that particular week.

I received an email on my Blackberry Sunday night from a friend, who insisted that I urgently turn on CNN. I did. When the screen flashed a message stating that 'OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD' I was completely awestruck and silenced. My wife and two daughters gathered around me, and together, we witnessed this story unfold. As a family. My now 10 and 13 year-old girls, will never really know of the dire concerns I had about their safety and future 9 and a half years ago when 9/11 happened.

I woke up at 7 a.m. PST on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was looking forward to starting a new semester at Seattle University the following week, and with two babies at home, I was probably one of the happiest and most content men on this planet. Things were just plain good for me.

Like every morning before and since, I have either CNN on the TV, or BBC News on the radio. This particular morning, CNN's Headline News was on as I was making coffee.

The news usually is just a way to start the day somewhat informed for me, but that morning, there was a strange story on about a small plane that crashed into one of New York's Twin Towers. What? Well, they WERE very tall, and aviation accidents DO happen. But THIS? Right in the middle of Manhattan?! I sat down to watch.

The next thing that we all saw on TV was the horrible sight of a massive passenger plane slamming into the second tower. With no previous experience of this kind of thing happening before in history, the newscasters were left stunned and speechless, and my brain just could not comprehend what the hell was going on. I sat there in my living room, silently locked on to the television.

The following reports of the Pentagon attack and the plane going down in a field in Pennsylvania quickly illuminated the facts that the U.S. was under a terrorist attack. For what act? And, by whom?

All I could think of was to get my family safe.

As all of the facts about Osama Bin Laden and al Queda started to get dispersed to all of the news agents, and all of the facts about people jumping from the higher floors of the towers, and then the Twin Towers imploding to the ground with all of the innocent people inside, and the Fire Fighters trying to rescue them....I sat and tried to figure some of this shit out. 10 years later, I am still trying to figure this shit out.

In the 2 weeks that followed, I started into a sort of downward spiral that I believe all of America experienced as a collective. WE as a people, we realized, were not our government's foreign policy. WE as a people, had no interest in 'empire building' or even the Middle East. I, like most other people around the world, just wanted my family safe, and to work hard so that their life could be better than mine. That is just a HUMAN thing, isn't it?

My neighbors, and family, and friends all came together then. I hugged complete strangers in the street. Everything was cancelled. Major League Baseball. Commercial airline travel. Schools. The streets and skies of America were silent and empty. It was scary and profoundly eerie.

But there was a strange sense of unification through all of this. Those of you reading right now, who may not have been old enough then to remember, missed out on a poignant and beautiful time of collective mourning and healing. I had never cried so much before then, or since. It seems corny to some of you I am sure. But that was a time in my life that will just forever stay static and precious.

I immersed myself into educating myself on all things present and past pertaining to tribes and countries in the Middle East. I studied Islam. I read about the Koran, and had previously read a few books of poems and ruminations by the prolific and profoundly sensitive Muslim poet Rumi.

It was my previous experience with Rumi, that actually had me convinced from the get-go of the 9/11 terror attacks, that this was not at all a 'Islam-versus-the-world' Jihad. No, the killing of innocents was nowhere in any doctrine that I could find. These were just fundamentalist assholes like the ones we can find in any state or province in any country around the world...at any time.

I hope now, with this particular fundamentalist gone, we can as humankind get back to being human...and kind to all...all of us, together.

http://blogs.seattle...eing_h.php#more

[lynn]

The Top 10 Rock Band Dos and Don'ts

By Duff McKagan
Thu., May 12, 2011 @ 9:53 AM


It dawned on me the other day that at this point in my life, I have been in one rock band or another for more than 30 years. This rarefied status should definitely give me a point from which to reflect a bit, and maybe even dispel some hard-won knowledge, the things that work and do not work within the makeup of a rock band. No?

With no further ado, then, here is a quick cheat-sheet on some of my wise(assy)ness.

1. Find a good and solid drummer first. Without a great backbeat, your band will simply never get out of the starting gate.

2. After that first solid drummer becomes too much of a pain in the ass--jettison said drummer, and repeat step #1. This process could very well end up consuming the rest of your career!

3. I'm kind of kidding about #1 and #2.

4. Get a singer that has what we call L.S.D.--Lead Singers' Disease. That person has to have the ability to stand in front on a stage, and usually with no guitar to stand behind--and absolutely OWN the whole stage and venue.

Yes, it takes an odd sort to feel comfortable in this odd situation. It usually takes a person who has very high thoughts about his or her own personage. It WILL get old after a while to the other band members. But hell, by the time the band is sick of the singer's antics, the sychophantic managers will already have found a way to wedge the original band guys out of the group.

5. The use of high levels of alcohol and drugs usually play cozy bed-partners to all persons who are in the later stages of #4.

6. Get a bass player who has a good sense of humor, because inevitably the "bass player jokes" will start to chip away at that poor sucker.

(There was a scientist visiting a lost tribe in the jungles of Africa. He was there to document the village life. On the day that the scientist gets to the village, the tribal drummer is playing for hours without a break, and everyone in the tribe seems happy and tranquil. The moment the drums stop, though, the villagers take off screaming through the jungle, away from the village. Then the scientist stops the chief of the tribe before he takes off, and asks why everyone is so scared and fleeing in such an abrupt fashion. The chief looks at the scientist in a panic and says, "Oh, now comes the bass solo.")

7. Guitarists are always cool from the outside. Their appearance onstage is always the envy of all of the "cool people" in the audience. If your kid wants to play an instrument, steer them to this instrument.

8. Everyone in the band should end up helping carry the gear to and from gigs. One thing that the band guys will have to look forward to, though, is the fact that their fitness will eventually be the best. Yeah, singers never DO end up helping in the endless schlepping of gear.

9. If you think I am only speaking of one particular band that I have been in here in this column, you are sorely mistaken. These steps are commonplace with most all rock bands that I have either been in or witnessed.

10. I have played all the above instruments in one band or another, so yes, I have indeed fallen in the trap of every above scenario!

11. Yes, I DID state that this is a "Top 10" list, but we musicians aren't the best at numbers . . . and letters . . . and names . . . and geography . . . and book-learnin'.

12. Have a GOOD sense of humor. If you take all this stuff (like this column) too seriously, then indeed you are not in on the joke--and hence will miss all the "good times" that being in a band will bring you.

13. And once you find yourself in a band, and you feel that the chemistry is perfect and the music is the best thing you can ever be a part of--just enjoy that time. All the other personal crap that you may have to endure, is just that . . . crap.


http://blogs.seattle...rock_b.php#more

[TAP]

Duff on twitter: Q: why does Tigger hop on his tail? A: so he doesn't step on poo

[lynn]

Hey! Get a Load of Duff's Memoir, It's So Easy
By Chris Kornelis
Fri, May 13, 2011 @ 12:48 PM


We're excited to be the first to share with you the cover of Reverb columnist Duff McKagan's memoir, It's So Easy and Other Lies. Duff's publishers at Touchstone/Simon & Schuster will start showing him off later this month at the Book Expo of America in New York City. The literature community is about to get a taste not only of Duff's uncommonly natural voice and refreshingly snark-free analysis of pop culture, rock, and current events, but of his work ethic.
In the nearly three years that Duff's written this column (dating back to August 2008), he has released two records with his band Loaded, taken a turn with Jane's Addiction, started a financial firm, and picked up a gig with ESPN.com, all while raising two daughters and picking up quarts of milk on the way home (on his Harley). Through it all, you're be hard-pressed to find a single week he hasn't lent his prose to this space.

Duff's written a number of columns about what it takes to make it in the music industry, including this week's column, "The Top 10 Rock Band Dos and Don'ts." But aspiring rockers need only look back at the trail of columns, questions, and answers he's left behind--some written on his Blackberry, some on transatlantic flights. Don't think for a second that Duff's discipline, versatility, and reliability hasn't had more than a little something to do with his success.

Congrats, Duff.



http://blogs.seattle...memoir.php#more

[AxlsMainMan]

From Scott Weiland:

On Velvet Revolver's 'Commercial Calculation':

Weiland admits to joining the band for financial gain. Guns N' Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum, plus guitarist Dave Kushner, "put some songs on a CD [for me] … it sounded like Bad Company and I never liked Bad Company. A week or so later another CD arrived with songs custom-designed for me.... I wasn't sure whether I wanted to hook up with these guys. Duff said, 'There's soundtrack stuff we've been asked to do, and the money's great.' The money attracted me. [But] I can't call it the music of my soul. There was a certain commercial calculation behind it. Velvet Revolver was essentially a manufactured product… we came out of necessity, not artistic purpose."

On Velvet Revolver's Breakup:

"I was running wild during the second Velvet Revolver tour [in 2007]," writes Weiland. "At the beginning of the tour, I was okay, but then a single line of coke in England did the trick. I snorted it. And soon the demons were back. Thus began another decline… I was out there again, going to dangerous places to buy substances. All this was done in secret; the guys in Velvet Revolver didn't know I was using. When I told the guys that we'd have to miss a couple of gigs because I needed treatment, their reaction shocked me. They told me I'd have to pay them for those cancellations -- in full. I reminded them that when they had relapsed and needed rehab, I had supported them completely. It made no difference to them.... It didn't matter that Velvet Revolver had sold some five or six million records. I was out."

http://www.spin.com/...d-courtney-love

[lynn]

oh, whine, whine, whine See #4, above. LSD.

[lynn]

Ain't No Business Like Book Business


By Duff McKagan
Thu., May 26, 2011 @ 10:44 AM

As many of you very well know, I am a die-hard and hardcore book-nerd. Some of you may also be aware that I have been writing a book over the last year or so. The book, It's So Easy, is done, and has a release date now of October 4, 2011.
Cool enough. But now all of real fun begins. It is time now, for me and Touchstone/ Simon & Schuster, to actually go out and try to sell this book to all of the different booksellers out there.

Book Expo America has been taking place in New York all week. This is a closed convention, where all of the different large and small publishers show their new wares to buyers like Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, Costco, Target, Hudson (you know, the stores at the airports), as well as all of the independent bookstores like Elliott Bay, Powell's, and the like.

For my book--and what is a common practice--they made up what's called a "catalogue copy"; mine is the first 9 chapters and the prologue to my book. It's pretty cool to actually see all of my solitary work actually coming to an endgame.

The night before my signing at the Expo, my senior editor and her staff at Simon & Schuster threw a cocktail party in my honor at a fancy restaurant in Manhattan called Lamb (so damn posh, right?). It was actually one of the sweetest things I've ever been too.

The publishing community is VERY different from the music community...or probably to be more exact--the publishing community is like some wonderfully kitschy and nerdy indie movie. The mood and personality that filled the room at this cocktail party in my honor was really not unlike the mood that we strike here in the comments section of this column: Interesting, thoughtful, smart, nerdy, and diverse.

I have been trained to be a little (OK, a LOT) dubious of rock and roll press. They always want "the dirt," or are looking for some snidely and wise-ass way to catch me off-guard or mis-quote me so that it seems much bolder and dumber than the things that they actually ask me about. And there was press at this cocktail party.

I quickly pulled my editor to the side and frantically told here that I didn't know that the press would be here at this party, and that I didn't want to talk to them at the risk of being miss-quoted for the umpteenth time. She looked at me quizzically, and stated that "The publishing press would never dream of doing something like that!" Yeah, I guess Kirkus Reviews and the book side of Associated Press and whatnot, just don't want the dirt. The publishing industry, it turns out, is just still a quaint little field, that is still in the business of actually being excited about new things, and press and all of the different publishing companies are still in the business of helping each other out. They want their industry to be strong, and there just really doesn't seem to be any sort of under-handedness and BS happening behind the scenes. This may seem like a bold statement from a neophyte like me, but I am pretty sure that I am right on this fact.

At dinner after the party, I sat with a few of the mucky-mucks from S&S. We were talking about books we had been reading. I had just finished One Bullet Away by Nate Fick, and one of the gentlemen that I was sitting with had edited that book. Yeah, that's right, for a book nerd like me, that was like sitting with the guy who had just produced the latest Rolling Stones record. Pretty cool.

At the Book Expo, I signed copies of my 'catalogue copy' for a thronging line of like-minded book nerds. There were a lot of people from other publishing companies, book buyers for larger and small stores, and librarians (even one from our own downtown Seattle Public Library).

The one big difference--and I must say that I WAS a tad crestfallen--was that none of them asked for me to sign their tits.




http://blogs.seattle...ok_bus.php#more

[AxlsMainMan]

“I am the TRUE AUTHOR of Steven Adler’s Tell-All”

Steven Adler is well-known for his years of whining and complaining about how he was kicked out of Guns N’ Roses. How all the people he thought were his friends turned their backs on him, and how management and the guys in his band, his “brothers”, got him to sign away his rights. These claims make it all the more distasteful as such injustices are exactly what he inflicted upon me. And I never would have believed it. It was I who wrote his book, “My Appetite for Destruction”, then named, “No Bed of Roses”, back in 2003.

I was a huge GNR fan when I met Steven. My hobby was collecting GNR memorabilia. After we became friends, I started the “Official Steven Adler Fansite” and ran it, on my own time and dime, for ten years. Oddly enough, as the only real ‘fan’ among Adler’s people, I was the only one keenly aware of how big Adler actually wasn’t. When he’d ask me to do outrageous things such as put his nail clippings on eBay or sell signed DVR’s at $100 a pop, I refused. It is no small satisfaction to see the negative feedback Adler currently gets at how his web presence is handled, particularly when he was selling “Fan Experience Packages” (lunch with Steven, $7500!?).

During my tenure, I’ve seen no less than a half dozen management teams & new official websites come and go. The last group of people I worked with really had a yen for power. Among them, one in particular I had known for months by the time business with the book was getting into high gear. I received an email from her with an attachment, stating to the effect of, “here’s your book contract, when can you come in and sign it?” This was a surprise, I was never given any hint that she was involved with our book dealings. In fact, I was further dismayed to see just how many new hands were in the ‘book pie’ - and that they intended to pay me after each newcomer’s commissions! Needless to say, the contract gave me no rights and I refused to sign.

I had initially signed on in 2002. The contract was with Steven’s mother, Deanna, for a fee of $10,000 upon publishing. In 2003, I renegotiated, and signed a contract for 10% of all book earnings ‘received from Adler’ plus the credit ‘by Steven Adler with Brooke Ellis’. It was Deanna’s intent to find a publisher to combine her own memoir with Steven's book. A few years had passed and she failed to secure a deal (I need to say that I hold nothing against Deanna Adler, and I am sorry to mention her here).

In 2007, I was told by Steven’s brother, Jamie, to sign a Release of Authorship, which retained only my 10% interest. I refused, and was told, “It’s this or nothing. If you contest this we will fight you hard, and you’ll lose, etc…” I didn’t have money for lawyers! I was further told that writer Larry Spagnola was going to weave Steven and Deanna’s stories together. I appreciated what a task that would be. They attempted to pacify me with the reassurance that I would have a special acknowledgement in the book, complete with a picture. I signed reluctantly, under duress & without counsel. Meanwhile, Deanna had forged Steven’s signature on the notarized contract.

Unbeknownst to me, Steven had previously sued his mother. Estranged from her since 2007, by ’09, with his new representation he had gotten out of book contracts that Deanna signed on behalf of him - on the grounds that she did not have power of attorney to do so. I breathed a HEAVY sigh of relief! I learned that Larry Spagnola had brokered a “big deal” with Harper Collins which they still wanted, now without the mother’s involvement or added story.

The 2009 “agreement” emailed to me was almost identical to the 2007 one, with the addition of an open-ended “after expenses” clause (tacked on to the stipulation of my 10% interest). Angered, I called Steven and said, “Don’t let them fuck me!” he said he would “never let that happen!”, and was shocked to learn my name wouldn’t be on the book, "There wouldn't even be a book without you!" he shouted. He told me to “go ahead and make your own contract”. That was the last time I spoke to him. His number was quickly changed and none of our mutual friends would return my calls.

Utilizing what money I had, I acquired the services of a literary attorney. Steven’s lawyers tried to tell her that all I had done was transcribe interviews. She had the original fleshed-out chaptered manuscript and told them so. Then they tried to say it was poorly written, she told them it WAS NOT! She made some headway. A perplexing conversation with Mr. Spagnola revealed that he maintained a bitter sense of entitlement to my work, and was stressed over the matter. Insanely, my lawyer then botched everything by accidentally forwarding our private correspondence in which we discuss strategy and my own admission of waning financial resources (thereby limiting any potential threat of a lawsuit from me).

While I had the lawyer under retainer, the first advance installment was paid in full (she argued that they COULD NOT deduct expenses). After she was out of the picture, the second advance installment was paid @ only 4.5%, the third @ ½. In my continuing effort to resolve the matter, I waited three months on a lawyer-friend of my family’s who promised to take action on my behalf. He never did. Then I retained the services of a contingency-based lawyer. After six months, all he did was acquire sales figures. Needless to say, lawyers suck. However, each lawyer had agreed the 2007 contract is void primarily because Steven’s signature is forged, further compounded by the fact that Adler deducted massive expenses from my 10% interest, before refusing to pay me at all. Therefore, they are using my work with NO VALID CONTRACT. The book has since been released and I have not received a penny. The book, meanwhile, is very much in the form of my initial draft (I had always planned to develop it further), fully edited with a few extra pages added. My name is changed to “Chuck” in stories that feature me. For the record, much of the real ‘dirt’ had been taken out.

From the opening segue into the first chapter, “Let’s start from the beginning, so we can see how things began to unravel until they got so fucked up” (the gist of which I borrowed from the opening narration of the 1999 movie, Tart) to the closing line, “It’s gonna take a lot more than that to spoil my appetite!” (a cliché phrase I was actually embarrassed over), it’s all me. I can tell you exactly what came from the 20 hours of audio I have with Steven, what facts came from an existing book, magazine or TV interview - or what I just made up! Ultimately, it was my aim to paint a sympathetic portrait of the man. You’ll notice there’s not much in the novel accounting for the years 2003 – 2009. These are the scant few pages Larry actually contributed.

I always appreciated Steven’s friendship greatly, and we had been through a lot together. But he allowed this injustice against me. He let his people trample and humiliate me. He is a backstabber of the highest order. Many people have attested publicly that he is not a good person. I always defended him. Then I learned just how right they were. In fact, given the seedy element he associates with, I wonder if I should fear for my safety after this comes out. It’s been me alone against his army. They ganged up and treated me like shit to maximize their potential cuts.

Sadly, it is Lawrence Spagnola with the last laugh. He has credit for a New York Times Bestseller he did not write, and (as it was he who brokered the Harper Collins deal) the lions-share of profits and a strong contract to protect him. I will never cease in my mission to expose him for what he is, a THIEF who STOLE my work and took credit for it.

I’ve done everything in my power to resolve this matter peacefully. I told them I’d sign their contract if they simply got rid of the open-ended after-expenses clause. They refused! I may have reluctantly gone along with it all, settled for the special acknowledgement – I didn’t want to make waves, or jeopardize my friendship with Adler - but I was not going to allow them to exploit me further by finding new ways to screw me! They saw this as an OPPORTUNITY. They appealed to Steven’s tampered sensibility by making exaggerated and defamatory claims, saying I was “crazy” and making “unreasonable demands”. Ultimately, they knew I didn’t have the resources to fight this, so they kicked me when I was already down, over and over for the last two years. Recently, I was told that this New York Times Best Seller which has been re-issued in paperback, did not make back it’s advance and there was no money coming to me. I’ve had it. This is my attempt at setting the record straight. I never wanted to go public with this, but Steven hasn’t seen fit to make this right, and I have no choice. I have retained a new lawyer, an aggressive fellow by the name of Michael Lotta, and we are taking this to court.

This has been hurtful and stressful. Adler robbed me. People are lucky if they get one big break, and this was mine. A saving grace has been my own music passion project, “Vintage Quixotic” (New music for Old Hollywood) which, to my satisfaction, proposes more talent than Adler ever will have with his clumsy drumming.

- Brooke Ellis

Read a 2005 interview Ellis gave about the Adler book here:
http://www.roadrunne...ewsitemID=33933

Other related Ellis/Adler stories:
http://www.roadrunne...ewsitemID=46231
http://www.roadrunne...ewsitemID=42721

[Mr. Roboto]

Wow, that's fucking crazy. If he is telling the truth then Steve really is a POS. Maybe I'm tired and don't see it, but where was the article above originally posted?

[AxlsMainMan]

Yarmo's.