Velvet Revolver and former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan delivered the keynote address at this year's CBGB Music Festival, part of the CBGB Music & Film Festival Conference this month in New York City, and video fo some of his address is available.
In his keynote, McKagan spoke fondly about visiting CBGB’s on his first trip to NYC, where he bought one of the club’s shirts and wore it almost daily for some time. He also laid out his advice for artists, saying “New bands should be true and honest. F*** commerce. What you're doing should be in your heart. Money will come and you can deal with that all later.”
McKagan fronts his own group, Duff McKagan's Loaded, is a member of the supergroup Walking Papers, is a noted online columnist, and is the founder of the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
The CBGB Music & Film featured 525 bands in over 175 venues. The festival also hosted more than 125 speakers and 60 new music-based films and documentaries including Green Day's "Broadway Idiot."
An abbreviation for "Country, BlueGrass, and Blues", CBGB holds a very important place in rock 'n' roll history when it began its auspicious origin as a music club on The Bowery in NYC's East Village. Founded by the late Hilly Kristal in 1973, CBGB became a hotbed for American punk and new music with bands like Ramones, B-52s, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, the Patti Smith Group and The Dead Boys.
See also:
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Duff McKagan to deliver keynote address at CBGB Music Festival
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