THE MADNESS – CANADIAN MUSIC WEEK 2010 PART 2!

BY: FRIDAE MATTAS

CMW has come and gone, this is how the rest of the festivities went down. Are you ready? Grab a snack; this is a novel of three days crammed into one, you’ll be reading for a while, but at least there’s pictures!

If you don’t know who Slash is, clearly you are a newbie in the world of rock n’ roll guitar greatness or just lost. Slash’s real name is Saul Hudson; he is one of the best guitar players of our time. Hudson started in the music game as lead guitarist in the immensely successful band “Guns N Roses”. Slash recently released his first self titled solo record April 6^th. This year CMW landed Slash as a Celebrity Keynote speaker and his interview was on Thursday March 11th, it was madness! Comparing last year when Gene Simmons of Kiss was a keynote speaker to this year’s Slash keynote, I would say Slash’s crowd was crazier, although Gene does win for the most diehard weirdos in KISS makeup.

Slash was interviewed by CNN’s John Roberts co-anchor of “American Morning” and CNN Anchor Kyra Phillips. John Robert’s was one of the first Much Music VJ’s when the network launched in 1984 he’s the original VJ. The questions Slash was asked were derived from the writings in his published memoir “SLASH”. They asked him about Axl, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, little pieces of his childhood and what led him to this point in time. Frankly, if they had some audience questions thrown in there, it would have been a much more interesting interview. Many of the queries seemed rather redundant, below par considering they were coming from someone who hosted “The Pour Hour”.

I was able to get inside away from the clutter of people and press or so I thought! I ended up in more of a zoo at the centre of the circus, the press pit. They utilized the right side of the stage as the front end media area. They had a whole other section near the middle of the venue off to the right side that housed hundreds of videographers and photographers. Being in the front lines is ridiculous, always ducking, trying to balance and achieve feasible footage and photographs. All this focus needed while dudes are climbing on top of me just for the same shots every other photographer was getting. It reminded me so much of Fashion week but there wasn’t as many psychotic divo stalkerazzo’s causing drama. There were so many things you could have talked about and I’m glad they at least asked Slash about his love of guitar and how it still affects him the same way today, “There’s something about a guitar that is just innately sexy, and still to this day when I open a guitar case there’s still that sense of awe.” said Hudson, I agree one hundred percent!

Now to play like he does! Haha…Ya right, it’s like trying to be Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughn! There’s only one, you can’t replicate the original. Slash jibbered about how cutthroat the music industry is and to be very careful who you trust as you gain success, there is that chance your best “friends” will fuck you over. It’s true though, how well do you really know these people around you, don’t be so gullible.

“It’s all about the music, about protecting and keeping that sacred, being able to function and have control over it and not letting somebody else do it.” – Slash

Slash gets my respect for more than just the obvious, the comment he made shows his genuine self. “I’m not much of a money minded person that’s always been sort of my character defect, I never did this for the money, so I never really cared much about it but at this point I’m sort of like going, we need to pay attention to what’s going on.”

He speaks with such rare honesty I completely understand why Slash and Axl don’t mesh. Hudson was talking about his solo record and he mentioned that he wasn’t sure if the artists he wanted to work with would agree to work with him. As he was explaining the story his expressions were so animated like a little boy at show and tell. He was so amazed at the fact he had no problem working with those he chose. I like his perspective on some things, he seems like a chill Larry keepin’ it real. Watch the video clip of him talking about Michael Jackson and Ray Charles

The funniest thing I remember from that particular event was at the end. The whole room launched at the stage, I had to go on the stage to escape getting crushed from the rush. Everyone wanted to touch, talk and get a picture with Slash; it was far more insane than Gene’s Q&A. I’ve seen it hundreds of times before with other artists but it still amazes me how uncivilized and wild people really are. It’s all about the balancing of Mind, Body and Soul, not one over the other. Back to the funnier stuff, there was this extra trashy woman in her mid forties, possibly older with super fried bleach blonde hair and feathered 80’s bangs. Basically her tragic garb and facepaint made her look like she just rolled off the set of Trailer Park Boys! This woman was pushing people hard-core trying to get to Slash, as was everyone else. Tried to film the madness but it was too crazy to get any viable footage, two seconds after I put my camera away I look up and I see trailer geez staring at me like I was wearing her clothes. That wasn’t the last I saw of her, later I went out for a smoke and voila…She was staring at me like I stole her money, only this time she had her daughter with her, who joined in on the staring session. The feeling I got was that the daughter is an “aspiring artist”, I feel sorry for her, the spitting image of her trailer trash stage mom 20 years younger. Picture “Kelly Bundy” uglier, cracked out with super ghetto “Shoppers Drugmart” extensions. The “Trailer Twins” weren’t the only ghetto weaved Shoppers blondes I ran into that day who were acting like they wanted to start something! I swear! There are way too many insecure Britney-abee’s trying to initiate drama with me just for existing. I don’t know what their damage was or is but the whole thing seemed very bizarre, however they did make me laugh adding to the many moments of amusement. Countless laughs during CMW, fun times with amazing people as always!

Next up at CMW headquarters I was to check extremely talented platinum selling British Jazz-Pop musician Jamie Cullum. I first found out about Jamie a few years back, I had to see him live. Thought I was going to miss this interview and performance but reached just in time to get some great coverage.   The Concert Hall was nicely decorated, so pretty with all the deep bright colours, the floor however was so weird to walk on, very uneven. I’m surprised I didn’t nose dive at least once because I am a natural klutz and the way the carpet was covering these boards the floor was calling my name. Cullum was interviewed by Music industry legend Ralph Simon, currently CEO of Mobilium and he was Co-founder of Zomba Music Group, now part of Sony Music Entertainment. This discussion was a more vibrant talk than the earlier nooner with Slash. Both parties were comfortable and had more personality, it wasn’t just the interviewee or vice versa. One of the questions Ralph asked Cullum was how he came to be on Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino”, in short Cullum stated they met through Eastwood’s son Kyle. Watch Jamie talk about the song and perform it. He delivered exactly as I expected, a remarkable talent is Jamie Cullum check him out if you can.