by Duff McKagan
Now that my children are teenagers, I’m back to traveling alone a lot (well, by alone, I mean the guys in my band) or just with my wife. Now I make a point of visiting museums and historical sites or just going for a stroll (try that with young kids!).
One of the first things I do when I travel to a new city is try to discover what the locals do. I’m not too big on the touristy-type of stuff. Tourist food and tourist factoids all blend together into a homogenized stew of ersatz nachos and cardboard hamburgers.
Here’s a look at some of the knowledge I’ve absorbed from a life spent on the road and a few tips for your next journey.
KNOW YOUR WELSH IN WALES
Two of the three crew guys in this Walking Papers family are Welshmen. The third guy, Paul, is from nearby Bristol, England. The banter among the three of them is one-of-a-kind hilarious. The Welshmen have something that the rest of us never will: an understanding of writing and speaking the Welsh language, which is very different and completely unrecognizable from the English language.
The two Welshmen are Rob Jones and Jay Smith. These dubious names should have tipped me off from the start. I mean, Smith and Jones? Let’s be real here. These last names are made up. Probably a couple of stiffs on the run from a bank robbery or something, now hiding out on a rock tour. Rob and Jay can speak fluent Welsh, which, of course, gives them a sort of secret place to talk shit about the rest of us.
Bristol Paul, meanwhile, is no less shady. As I write this, he is sending me photos of sheep. This must be some sort of inside stuff that we ’Mericans don’t get.
Since we’d played everywhere else on the planet except Rob and Jay’s home country, it stands to reason that the last date on our previous run through the world was in Newport, Wales. Naturally, they were very excited to show us how cool their country is.
We arrived at a Holiday Inn–type of place about fifteen miles outside of the city the evening before the gig. This being the country and all, there wasn’t a taxi service available to run us into town. We were hungry, and our only option was a pub across the motorway from the hotel.
Wales is famous for a few things that I know of: Tom Jones (of course), Princess Diana, Motörhead’s Phil Campbell, Manic Street Preachers, Rob and Jay (natch), and Catherine Zeta Jones.
The pub was not unlike an American Black Angus or T.G.I. Friday’s. There was a bar in the back, a “wait to be seated” area up front, booths and tables, and, of course, five guys who looked just like an age-appropriate version of Tom Jones. The food was perfect road fare: fries, chicken wings, a tuna niçoise salad, all served in those plastic red baskets with the paper lining. My takeaway from the evening was twofold: (1) this place really knows how to serve comfort food for the weary traveler, and (2) a lot of people in this area either really like Tom Jones, or I was at a gathering of Tom Jones impersonators.
The next day was gig day down in Newport, but, before I go further, let me explain something about a crew and band traveling together in the same bus: if one person needs one thing, no matter how big or small or trivial or unnecessary, everyone has to go. In the case of Newport, we needed 9-volt batteries. Rob and Jay decided to take us to the big grocery store just on the way into town. Not only could we get the batteries, but they had an espresso place inside and a deli. We’d all be able to get something to eat or whatever while we were there. Even better.
It became apparent why our Welshmen wanted to show this store off. It had everything. Bookstore? Sure. Luggage and bags? Of course. Footwear, gym shorts, and pants? Why not!? They also had an absolutely huge selection of food, which was great. But here’s the thing, though: everything was in Welsh. The books, the labels, and those big signs in the aisles that tell you where to find, um, “products.” I went in looking for a new microwave oven because the bus company asked us to replace our broken one.
Looking down the aisles at very fancy words I could only guess at, I began to feel like we were really in a foreign place. The language had stood the test of time and survived Roman conquering and Viking pillaging and Christian rule. I wondered where this exotic language originated: Surely some Greek, and perhaps a little Russian, and maybe some Celtic? Just at that moment, I ran into Rob, and I began exhorting my theories about his language and its beginnings.
“Nah, mate,” he said. “We just make words that sound like the thing itself. Sure, we have taken some English into account.” He pointed to the deli aisle with the word “caws” above it, “That’s cheese, mate. And there (pointing to a sign that spelled “grefi”), that is gravy!” Then he began to sound out words that were taken from the sounds that the objects make. The word for a “rock,” for instance, was a guttural and harsh-sounding use of consonants that did in fact sound like a rock. Same thing for “air,” “wind,” and “fire.”
When I asked Rob what the Welsh call a microwave, he plainly stated, without the trace of a laugh or a joke, “Oh, that’s a popty ping.” Right. Of course. Like the sound of popcorn popping in a microwave. He is totally fucking with me.
Newport has been around for a while and boasts a classic village center that has grown outward over the centuries and into this modern era. Old brick archways and Roman-era stone bulkheads lead to cool antique stores and mediocre Subway sandwich shops.
The Newport rock crowd is a serious affair. It’s not a major metropolitan area, and this little neck of the woods often gets passed over on the bigger rock tours. As a result, the Newportians show up in force, and they are loud and joyous, apparently a bit starved for rock. The Walking Papers had a great show, and so did Alice in Chains, the evening’s headliners. It was so good, in fact, that I had kind of forgotten about the huge grocery store event from earlier in the day.
As I was getting ready to leave the venue, I wanted to warm some water for a cup of tea to go. There were a few venue staffers milling around, and I asked a young woman where the kitchen was. She saw my cup of water and correctly assumed that all I wanted was to warm it up. Pointing to a room situated next to us, she said, “Yes, but the popty ping is just in there.”
Just when I thought I had Rob pegged.
DON’T EAT PEANUTS IN HARAJUKU
On a recent tour with Loaded, my daughters joined me in Tokyo for their first trip to Japan. They were super excited to go to an area in Tokyo called Harajuku (it has a trippy, hipster vibe). The day before they arrived, I decided to cab it over to Harajuku and do a little recon so that I could guide the fam through the maze with as much ease as possible. I have learned this recon tactic by getting lost with kids in tow too many times. Not cool or fun.
During the cab ride over, my stomach started to rebel from my questionable meal in Singapore the day before. This happens all the time on the road, and my cure-all (passed down from our road-dog forefathers in DOA and Black Flag—no shit) is salted peanuts. Upon my arrival in Harajuku, I ducked into a 7-Eleven-type of store and got a nice peanut-and-rice-cracker combo, perfect for eating and recon-ing on the go!
Harajuku is all connected by alleyways lined with themed shops in amazing contrast to each other: punk-rock clothes next to pastel-only skirt shops next to early-’80s NY beat-boy clothing next to a Star Wars store. It became obvious that many of the printed T-shirts with band names or Star Wars characters are bootlegs (last time I checked, Skywalker’s first name is “Luke,” not “Look”).
It was in one of these alleyways that I stumbled upon a rock-and-roll (bootleg) T-shirt store. What caught my eye was a Metallica/GN’R split-band T-shirt in the front window. Of course, this shirt never existed in real life back in the day, but it got me to further peruse the inside of the store. I was met with a dazzling array of OG Guns N’ Roses shirts with some “artwork” close to the original and other “artwork” comically missing. Just as I was looking at a skull-guys-on-the-cross GN’R shirt (where we all looked more like chimps than dastardly rock-and-roll hellions), I was asked to leave . . . for eating inside of the store.
I was relieved that they didn’t recognize me. I
rather hope that I look nothing like a skull-chimpy-type of rocker. Nope, I’m a rock-and-roll hellion, with salted peanuts on a mission to find the bunny-petting cafe and nail salon and Alice in Wonderland–themed restaurant in Harajuku.
I’m a badass.
HOLD ON TO YOUR WOMAN IN PARIS
Of course, everyone should try to get to Paris. The City of Lights really does ooze romance. The food and culture are second to none, and walking from the center of town to the Place de la Republique, or strolling down the Avenue de la Grande-Armée, will fill all your senses and interests: art, food, people watching, angry cab drivers, and, at night, the lights.
The non-Français speaker must at least try to speak some French. You will be solidly rebuffed if the first words out of your mouth are “Do you speak English?” Through the years I’ve noticed that if you stumble through a few phrases and terms to a Parisian, they often become very helpful. If you don’t at least try, you will get hosed.
That said, getting snubbed by Parisians is kind of funny. The amount of scorn some locals have for outsiders can be quite comical. On a recent tour, I went downstairs at the hotel looking for coffee a couple minutes after I woke up. In my best accent, I mustered up a “Café, s’il vous plait?” to the gentleman at the front desk. “Non!” he replied back rather gruffly, like I had just said something bad about his family. Ok. No problem. “Ou est le Starbucks?” I retorted. “I DON’T KNOWWWWW!” he said back to me totally loudly and with a weirdly abrasive and sneering tone. I’ve never quite figured out what his problem was. I just walked away.
One final tip for the fellas: the men here have no problem going after your wife right in front of you. Susan used to live in Paris and, thusly, speaks a bit of the local jargon. When she speaks French at a restaurant or bar, the men flock to mon amour. It’s like I’m not even there.
WHEN IN FLORIDA, LOOK OUT FOR THE CITY COUNCIL
When you’re traveling in a bus that is seventy feet long (with the trailer), it can be hard to find a good place to park.
One time Loaded’s promoter got us permission to park in front of City Hall in a beach town suburb of the larger metropolitan Jacksonville. The problem with this was that a city council meeting was about to take place, and they were not alerted to our status as Very Important Parkers. My colleague Mike Squires and I were the only ones on the bus when we heard a knock on the door. A city councilwoman asked us who we were, and we politely explained our situation. She seemed OK with our answer and wished us a nice stay.
In actuality, she went straight into City Hall and brought out a bunch of her male council friends with the intent of getting us kicked off of the property. By this time, however, I was tired, hot, lonely, and a tad cranky. When one of the male council dweebs said in essence that I was lying about us having permission to park here, well, I kind of got in his face and asked him not to insult me any further and that I had been touring for more than half of my life and that we wouldn’t do something as asinine as lying just to get a parking spot, especially in front of a shitty city hall. This guy was a real greasy and smarmy prick. He called the cops. Luckily, Squires knows how to handle the cops and an escalation of my righteousness was averted. But we had to move the bus. Fine.
That night, to celebrate being best friends and this being the longest I’ve ever been in a band with the same guys, we all got tattooed with some variation of the Loaded logo. The gig in Jacksonville kicked some serious ass, and that city council dude still has to deal with the fact that he has a small penis (OK, I guess that’s one resentment that still needs working on). All was well.
MIX SEX AND TORTURE IN PRAGUE
GN’R played Prague in 1991 just after the Iron Curtain came down. It’s interesting to see the changes here since then: gone are the drab Soviet-style colors, replaced by a rainbow of pastel and beauty. I highly recommend it.
When visiting this most beautiful of European cities, one has to take note that this place was unscathed during World War II. The spires of churches and castles here in Prague have been left pristine during our modern times of aerial warfare. So, definitely get out and walk the old part of the city. Go to the Charles Bridge, and follow the cobblestone path up to the castle tour (it took so long to build, eight hundred or so years, that this castle alone contains about twelve different architectural styles in it). Do the Haunted Prague tour, and go to the Torture Museum and the Sex Machine Museum. Pleasure and pain go hand in hand here in Prague.
Tip: Don’t say “Hey! Are you Czechoslovakian?” here in the Czech Republic. There once was a united Czech and Slovakia, but now they are two separate countries. You will get an evil stare if you make this slipup.
DRINK AND CRAWL IN DUBLIN
This Irish town has remained one of my favorite places on earth. The people here are friendly and love a good laugh, and the history of poverty and prosperity and shipping and potatoes will keep any tourist fascinated for days.
If you are a drinker, you have to experience a pub crawl. Every pub here has its own flavor and the Guinness is, of course, always on tap. In fact, the Guinness and Jameson whiskey factories offer tours. The center of Dublin has an electric nightlife, and the NOVA radio station plays great rock music.
But don’t expect to understand anyone after about 10 p.m. The culture of hard drinking here is deeply ingrained. People like me who don’t drink are looked at suspiciously, and I am often still offered a pint of Guinness, as if it doesn’t count since I am in Dublin.
IN BELFAST, LEAVE YOUR TROUBLES BEHIND
When punk rock first reared its head, people were introduced to the genre through bands like the Ramones, the Dictators, and, later, the Stooges. The music was rough and impactful, but otherwise the songs were about cars, girls, fun, and dope.
In the UK and Ireland, though, there were political and class struggles that were pointed and scary. In America, we did not have the same level of economic problems that they had. And in America we had nothing close to imperialism intruding in on us.
When the Sex Pistols and the Clash records stormed into US record stores, we became educated on the seemingly exotic problems on their side of the water. Remember, there was no cable TV or World Wide Web. They definitely didn’t teach us about the disgruntled working class in the UK or the Troubles in Ireland in school. Punk-rock music became much more than just a heavy riff with a snotty vocal.
There was a scrappy band from Ireland called Stiff Little Fingers whose songs told a rather bloody story about a people under siege. I had no idea at the time that the first two records—Inflammable Material and Nobody’s Heroes—were personal stories of an area run red with blood: Belfast and Northern Ireland.
In 1980, I was fifteen years old, and, of course, lived at home. My mom was very supportive of me playing music, and she even pretended to take an interest in the Damned, the Jam, Germs, the Ruts, and whatever other records that I would play in our living room. She worked hard all day, every day. So when she got home from work, I would turn the volume down to give my poor ol’ mother a break.
But I would sometimes see her looking through the jackets of the records I brought home. She wasn’t looking for crude or inappropriate content. She was looking for common ground between the two of us. She was a nice and smart Irish lass with a huge curiosity for what was out there in the world.
One day, I came home from band practice and was surprised to hear the music of Stiff Little Fingers coming from the stereo. I knew it was not my older brother, Matt, playing my records, ’cause he was ONLY into jazz back then. As I entered our living room, I saw my mom holding the Nobody’s Heroes jacket cover with tears streaming down her cheeks.
What I wasn’t aware of until then was that my mom had been following the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It was where her father was from, and we had a lot of family living in and around those parts.
Political and, especially, religious strife had gotten that country into such a civil war of sorts that there was a fear-based gridlock choking the people as a
whole. Terrorism and sabotage and car bombs were a daily occurrence for many years.
“Bloody Sunday,” “Suspect Device” (the British term for a supposed bomb), and “Gotta Getaway” were just a few of the songs that suddenly came to life for me as my mother gently explained the intricacies of what these “poor boys” in Stiff Little Fingers must have been facing.
The Troubles are thankfully a thing of the past. Stiff Little Fingers are not. They are still alive and kicking some butt.
Tip: Tell someone “It’s great to be in Northern Ireland.” Take notice of the painted curbs in certain neighborhoods: the different colors used to delegate whether it was a Protestant or Catholic street.
VISIT CHECKPOINT CHARLIE IN BERLIN
I am a serious World War II buff, and just about everywhere you look in Berlin has had something to do with that world upheaval. The Allies split this city up back in 1946, and the Soviet side of Berlin, of course, started to close down communication to the point of building the famous Berlin Wall in 1961. For years, this city stood divided as an example of Western prosperity on one side and ruthless Soviet drab and paranoia on the other.
Tip: Visit the wall and count your blessings.
GET YOUR JAMBON IN BARCELONA
If architecture is your game, this is one of the most interesting cities to visit. The streets and buildings and parks teem with the touch of Antoni Gaudi, and the main cathedral (still being built 120 years later!) has four distinct sides that are amazingly different from the others.
Try to spend some time in the Gothic Quarter. But give yourself more than a couple hours to look around. The last time I was here, we arrived at something like 4 p.m. and had to quickly pull a full-on power-tourist move—hailing taxis and quickly looking at one sight before moving to the next—because we had a gig at 8 p.m. Also, try the jambon. Yes, it is just ham, but damn! They take pride in this locally produced meat staple.