Screen Name?
Hardware

And what is your real name?
Mike

Where are you from?
This year, a suburb of Minneapolis. I essentially grew up in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) and for the past several years have lived somewhere in or near Minneapolis. When people ask where I grew up, I say Coon Rapids, the northern suburb where we moved when I was about 10 years old. Once in a while I end up declaring the fact I am a native of Indiana, although I have no family there any more and therefore little connection to the state where I lived through third grade.  But that, and the fact that my heritage can be traced to the south side of Chicago, helps me explain why my favorite sports teams are from Chicago. 

Please tell us a little about yourself (Job, hobbies, etc.):
I am a newspaper reporter, essentially, for a suburban weekly newspaper group. I am no longer happy with my job, and it’s time to move on. I’m not sure if I’ll end up at another publication or doing something different, but I need to light a fire under my butt or I’ll languish at that company for yet another year. I went to college to become a journalist and never found anything better to do with my time. I dabbled with the idea of working in broadcast journalism, but never pulled that trigger. I wound up working on the college radio station and loved it. (This was back in the L.A. Guns heyday, and yes, I played the band on my weekly show.) I wish I had pursued some form of voice work. I have, for the past few years, worked in the winters at a bingo hall, calling bingo games. I’m not kidding! Most people who work shifts calling bingo hate it, but not me. I’m in love with the sound of my voice.

As for hobbies, I’m not sure if most people consider bicycling to be a hobby. I do it for the exercise and challenge, primarily, and occasionally I do organized rides. Some are one-day events, some are multi-day events. My regular annual trip is a two-day, 150-mile bike ride to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. I also like to challenge myself to an easy trail ride when I visit my friends’ cabin in northern Minnesota. The trail is paved and I ride a road bike, not a mountain bike, so even though 112 miles sounds like a lot of riding, it’s not the hardest thing to do, particularly since I won’t attempt the ride if wind or rain is a significant factor. I have been lucky enough to have favorable weather during the past two summers, so I have completed that ride twice. I have bicycled 100 miles or more in a day six times in my life.

A few months of the year I dedicate time to geocaching, a high-tech game of hide and seek I have referenced in the forum here more than once. (www.geocaching.com if you want to learn more.)

I am not married and I have no children. If I was rich I’d probably be enjoying the freedom that many with a family do not  have by traveling about the country taking part in bike rides, geocaching and catching L.A. Guns shows in cities I’ve never visited. If I win the lottery tomorrow that’s exactly what I’m going to spend 2008 doing.

I love card games and find them to be a great social recreation. I wish I played them more often. I’ve always liked games since I was very young, often preferring to watch games shows over cartoons on TV. Some day I will be a contestant on a game show, I am determined. (I have been to six tapings of The Price is Right, but I have yet to be picked.)

How/when and why did you get into L.A. Guns?
There was a combination of factors that contributed to my love of the band. Growing up in the 1980s I listened to top 40 music exclusively. My first concert was a Huey Lewis & The News concert in 1984. I saw several top 40 bands during high school.

When I went to college I listened to some Beatles tapes my dad had made. He was a big fan, so I grew up with the music. Besides listening to the Beatles more often during my freshman year I had a buddy in the dorm room next to me who was a guitar player. “Swamp” was a huge Led Zeppelin fan and could play a bunch of their stuff on his electric guitar. I was vaguely familiar with Guns ‘N’ Roses, and so I’d listen to him play some of their stuff,  most memorably “Sweet Child of Mine.” The combination of those things helped pique my interest in hard rock.

By the end of my freshman year I started working some hard rock songs into my weekly college radio show, thanks to Swamp, who let me borrow his CDs. When I was working on Friday afternoons Swamp would ask me to play a song on my show as he was driving home for the weekend. Since I didn’t know bands like Tesla or L.A. Guns he’d have to tell me what their popular songs were. I sampled “Electric Gypsy” and liked it, so I started playing it on my radio show. But I still hadn’t gotten into the band at that point, I just liked the song.

Fast forward to “Cocked and Loaded.” I’m watching MTV and the video for “Rip and Tear” comes on. I’m not that captivated by the song, and wasn’t that impressed with the band/video as I watched it. I didn’t even know what I was watching until the end of the song. When I realized it was the same band that did Electric Gypsy, I still wasn’t impressed.

But then I saw the video for “Never Enough.” The video was clever, but the song amazed me. I loved it, absolutely loved it. If I had to pick a favorite song of all time, Never Enough gets consideration. It’s definitely top 3 for me.

So at that point I started to get into the band. By the time “Hollywood Vampires” came out, I was a fan.

What is your favourite song/album?
Now that I have identified my favorite song, it may come as no surprise that Cocked and Loaded is my favorite album.

Now share your favourite L.A. Guns story/memory, please:
One favorite? No way!

As noted, I was hooked on L.A. Guns by the time Hollywood Vampires was released. The band had a club show at a big Minneapolis club that has long since gone out of business. I wanted to go, I had my first car, I was of legal drinking age...the stars aligned. One problem, the show sold out rather quickly, I learned. Had I been a bold, brash young rock fan I would have traveled the 45 minutes to the venue, a venue I had never been to, and assumed I’d find one lone ticket available from somebody. I’m sure I would have.

But I was a bit timid and not a regular at club concerts, so going to a show by myself was not something I considered doing at that time. I remember hearing the evening DJ on the local rock station interviewing one of the guys from the band (I don’t remember which one) the night of the show and it really irritated me to know I was missing out on my first L.A. Guns concert.

A couple of years later I’m hearing rumors of the band breaking up, “Vicious Circle” is released and I’m living on the Canadian border in northern Minnesota, five hours from Minneapolis. Without the internet back then it was hard to know what was happening, but I had heard rumors of a tour in early 1995, although that didn’t happen. Soon I learned Phil was gone and I was crushed.

At some point I learned that Chris Van Dahl was the lead singer, and when I had a chance to see that version of the band in the Minneapolis area one weekend, I went, knowing I would be disappointed by what I heard. I couldn’t help but wonder how many fans at that club knew what they would be getting that night.

I never thought I’d see a reunion of the band, so when it actually happened in 1999 I was amazed. I was living in Minneapolis by this time and able to see the original line-up that November in St. Paul. It only took me about seven years to finally see the band I didn’t see during the Vampires tour, but it happened. The memories of that night are vague after all these years, but I still remember how happy I was to finally see the band as I had known it in college.

Bonus for me: I went to Las Vegas in April 2000 for about five days. I had no idea before I got to town that the band would be playing Pink E’s that weekend, so it was quite a pleasant surprise. I got to see the original line-up a second time, and not long after that Kelly, and ultimately Mick, departed again.

I have seen the band several times over the years, and it wasn’t until the recent show opening for Vince Neil that I made a point to seek out and meet others from the message board. (I had to in order to get a picture for this page!) I joke that I’m anti-social, but I’m not. I just never made it a priority in the past, and I’m a bit sorry I haven’t. Typically my only comrade for a concert is my friend Monica, who I have known since college. She travels quite a bit for work, however, so she’s not always available, therefore I end up going to shows by myself now and again. That was the case recently at the Vince Neil show, so it was nice to have people I know to hang out with, even if I had never met them before that night. Although L.A. Guns opened for Vince that night, they played 12 songs, and the whole experience will be one of those highly memorable nights.

What other bands do you like?
Tricky question because bands I use to listen to a lot aren’t necessarily bands I listen to today. By 2000 or so I had seen Firehouse six or seven times, but I haven’t seen that band in many years. I’ve seen Poison a handful of times, and I enjoy their show, but I wouldn’t consider them a favorite. I like a lot of different stuff, and it’s hard to say what bands I consider myself to be a fan of these days.  So instead of listing a bunch of bands, I will note that the only band I go out of my way to see in concert, besides L.A. Guns, is Tesla.

What is/are your favourite books?
I read mostly non-fiction. One of the most entertaining books I have ever read is “The Late Shift,” a book about the battle between Jay Leno and David Letterman to replace Johnny Carson as host of “The Tonight Show.” Another memorable book I’ve read is “Bringing Down the House,” a book about how a team of M.I.T. students worked together to win big money playing blackjack in the 1990s. I’m sure a lot of the subtle details are writer’s embellishment, but the basic story is highly entertaining if you enjoy playing blackjack.

And what is/are your favourite movies?
I’ll name the ones that come to mind most quickly...“Chasing Amy,” “Clerks,” “Kissing Jessica Stein,” “Groundhog Day,” “The Wedding Singer,” “Dirty Harry” and the “Back to the Future” trilogy. I have watched all those movies numerous times. 

Any famous last words?
Plenty. But before I sharing my personal mantra, I should note that never did I expect to someday be bestowed the FOTM honor. I am a dedicated fan, but not as hardcore as many, so even though I have been a member of the forum for about seven years I don’t have nearly as many posts as our more prolific contributors. This is the only band’s forum I participate in with any degree of regularity, and I’m honored to be recognized by others here.

The mantra: I didn’t coin the phrase, I learned of it while reading a tragic story about a minor league baseball player who I think died due to a health condition. I read the story more than 10 years ago and wish I could find a copy of that story today, but my internet searches have failed.

“If today was the last day of your life, is this how you want it to be remembered?”

R.I.P. Rivethead