Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax dies

Agence France-Presse

CHICAGO - Gary Gygax, co-creator of the iconic Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game and considered the father of modern role-playing gaming, died in his home Tuesday, his wife said.

Gygax had been suffering from a number of health problems including an incurable heart aneurism, Gail Gygax said. He was 69.

First published in 1974, the Dungeons & Dragons game, in which players create magical and heroic characters and guide them through a series of adventures, soon became a cultural phenomenon.

There was no game board in this interactive, imaginative adventure: just paper, pen, the dungeon master's rule book and a set of multisided dice.

D&D spawned a booming industry and has inspired a generation of writers, video game designers and filmmakers.

Gygax's cult hero status among self-proclaimed geeks is so intense that one fan even named a strain of bacteria after him.

But he faced intense criticism in the 1980s when the game became a target for cultural conservatives who blamed it for causing teen suicides, murder and devil worship.

"That really pushed the sales up," Gygax joked in an interview with GameSpy.

"What bothered me is that I was getting death threats, telephone calls, and letters. I was a little nervous. I had a bodyguard for a while.

"I'm glad that most people have been able to separate the fantasy of the game from the reality of real life -- games have nothing to do with real life. There are no real dragons, there's no real magic, no real magic swords, and certainly no real treasure... or I would have retired at home by now."

The popularity of Dungeons and Dragons faded in the 1990s as the video games boom began, but Gygax's influence in the gaming world continued through his columns and the more than 80 games, game products, and books he created.

A voracious reader with an unfettered imagination, Gygax worked intensely until his health deteriorated in 2004.

"He would be in a daze," Gail Gygax said. "Especially when he was creating a new world. One time he was painting a globe for two weeks."

She said that while he used computers to help speed up the designs for his games and the writing of his books, he never really got interested in video games.

"He liked the group environment where you were with people," she said.

"He played all kinds of games ... we would have a game of cribbage on our front porch every night in the summer."

Velvet Revolver's Duff McKagan
talks heroes, tours, bass guitars, gigs and his love of Prince! on Monday 3 March 2008

Previously of Guns'n'Roses, Duff McKagan, bass player with Velvet Revolver has been one of the most successful bass players ever, eGigs spoke to him before he headed to the UK for the Velvet Revolver tour, which begins at the middle of this month.

Hi, Duff describe where you are right now!
I'm in LA, and today it's like 80 degrees.

What made you decide to take up bass playing?
That's a good question. in my teens I started playing everything because I was the last to be a kid at home, everyone was older than I was. All my older brothers and sisters were older than I was, all of them played or sang. So there was guitars hanging around, there was a bass and drums, so I kind of everything. In my early punk rock bands, in my teens, I played guitar one band, I played drums in another, and I played bass in another. When I decided to make the move to L.A. when I was nineteen, I could have really come down and played any of those three instruments. But my drum kit was a piece of shit, and at that point in 1984 guitar players down in L.A. were doing Eddie Van Halen, Ingwe Malmsteen shit and I wasn't, I was more Steve Jones, Johnny Thunder style. So, I thought I would get my foot in the door playing bass, at least meet some people you know. I had a good bass, so I sold everything else and used that money to finance my trip, it wasn't that much money about $300. The first band that we formed when I moved here, the first people I met, were Slash, Steven and Izzy and we formed Guns'n'Roses. So, that's how I really started to become a bass player.

So did you train in music or was it just from having music around you all the time in your musical family?
Well music was just in the air, I'm self taught.

So who were your bass heroes?
Well I still garner a good appreciation for good players now. As a matter of fact two months ago I got completely re-inspired bass wise and I started taking lessons from really heavy and legitimate jazz fusion guys and I've been listening to a lot of bass players. People like John Paul Johns is probably a hero and (James) Jamerson, is probably the ultimate bass player, you know all the Motown stuff, that's where it all, that's where modern rock bass playing came from, Jamie Jameson.

What's your favourite bass line?
The song I'd love to master bass playing on, it's 'Good Times Bad Times' by Led Zepp, that's what I'm working on right now. It's a really, well if you listen you might go well I don't get it. But if you listen to it more intently you'll go woah shit! And then you peel off another layer and really try to try and learn every single line per line, it's really kind of a brutal song to play. But it's amazing and really great.

So can you read music then?
No, no, I'll just listen to it and then just play along to it and I've never done that until two months ago and then I started to really listening to stuff and starting to play along to it.

So in October 2007, Fender released a Duff McKagan signature P Bass model, based on you main Jazz Bass Special - so now do you play that all the time?
(Laughs) It's only my signature bass because it's the one I play, it's the first bass that I bought when Guns n Roses got our advance and that's the one I wanted. Fender stopped making them, so they would make those basses for me at the custom shop. It's the bass I preferred to play and it's the one I still to this day. I have some other Fender basses and I have some old P3B-F (P-III Bass-F) ones and they're great and cool but I wouldn't take them on the road. So you could say on the road I played my bass.

You love doing cover versions in Velvet Revolver what's your top five?
We did 'Surrender' by Cheap Trick, We did 'Seasons of Winter', 'No More, No More' great, great song. Anything by the Stooges is great for me.

After UK tour in March are you doing some UK festivals?
Well no, after this UK run we're done for this album cycle. We might do some festivals it's hard to say. All we have planned so far is finishing off the UK dates and then, like I don't know, Amsterdam.

Where do you like touring to most in the world and why?
Crowd wise it'll be the UK is probably my top, it is probably our second home. All the way back to Guns N Roses it was the first place we broke, we headlined theatres in the UK and it's the first place that really grabbed on to Velvet Revolver too. It's a great place for me and very familiar I have friends there, it's good and South America is also amazing.

Is there any differences between touring the USA and the UK?
I think rock fans music fans in the UK are just more knowledgeable about music, maybe it's because bands can get around easier there, I'm not sure what it is. It doesn't seem to be as commercialised. Okay there's certainly a huge commercial aspect to pop and stuff in the UK. But that's not really my ball park, I'm a rocker and rock to me in the UK seems to be less commercialised.

You're a father, do your kids like your music?
They do, they totally appreciate what we do and they've been on tour with me. They're going to be over in the UK with me again this time. They've probably seen our band a million times, we swear too much for them, you know. They're more into Amy Windehouse, Lilly Allen. They're into the UK shift thing right now.

What new bands do you like?
There's a band I kind of dig they're called 'Black Mountain' from Vancoucver D.C. They're very seventies, you know, they're kind of groovy.

What's the best gig you've been to as a punter?
Believe it or not, I saw the Led Zeppelin in '77 that one, I saw The Clash in Seattle in 1979. That was probably the most amazing gig I saw. I saw Iggy in 1980, all the early concerts I went to were like the best. Iggy when Brian James was in the band, that was fuckin' sick. And Prince, I gotta tell you, 31-21 club in Las Vegas, he did a whole thing, four or five nights a week for about eight months and it was completely inspiring as a musician. As a musician he's probably the most amazing guy to go and see.

Which of the band is best at Guitar Hero?
I don't think anybody in the band really plays it. I know my wife and my daughters play that thing, but nobody in the band, we're not big video game people, that stuff just came a little bit after we'd come of age. Dave might be a video game guy, I dunno he's a bit electronic.

What's your favourite song to play live?
Ummmmm, I think the answer for me is every night. It's whatever song. You know some nights are just magical,especially for me as a bass player to have a drummer like Matt. Some nights we're extremely locked in and it's like your in a huge cavern or cave and it's warm and you're sunk into this cave and on night's like that I'll play a whole set and it will feel like it's the most groovin' thing I've ever done in my life. So it's not a particular song, for me it's the feel of the gig.

So what's been your best gig?
There's been a few, there's been a few in the UK a Hammersmith show, that was particularly on, and one in Glasgow at the SECC and that was, you know when the crowd are so behind you that you can't you really can't go wrong. Then you're more relaxed and then you play better and there's more of a groove, there seems to be. The other big was the New Year's at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City a couple of month's ago. That was for some reason one of those magical really inspired gigs.

So do you get along as band members then?
You know, we got along musically, that's all that really matters, we get along famously on stage and yeah Matt and I are good friends, and Slash and I, of course, are good friends. We have such a long history together that I guess you could say have music in common.

So now the rock and roll excesses are over is it good to have them around?
I think it's a lot more fun to live and to have people that look to you, like your kids, that certainly is a lot more enjoyable than trying to kill yourself on a daily basis. I had a fabulous time, the times I remember where great, but once you get caught up into being a completely an addict and completely an alcoholic then it becomes sort of a chore, you have to feed that thing. And there's the fact that oh shit if I stop I'm going to be hurting, and have to go into detox. and you have to keep it going and after a while it gets pretty dire and pretty fucked up. But there was a point when it was all fun and games, it's wasn't as long as I wanted it to last and it wasn't as glamorous as I at one point thought it was going to be.

If you had one person from history come and watch you gig who would it be?
Man, it's kind of happened already you know Jimmy Page came and saw us play and Paul McCartney came and saw me play. We went on stage, and Paul McCartney he called me by my name, he knew my fuckin name, which totally freaked me out, you know I was like you're fuckin Paul McCartney he said, "Hey Duff, have a good gig." and that completely blew my away, like wow! At another gig and Jimmy Page came up after a gig, and it was great, seeing him and he came up and he spoke to us about music, you know and it was really surreal I got to say but pretty fuckin awesome.

Lastly, What's the best 'making out' record in the world?
Mmmmm ummm mmmm Prince 1999 you can do a lot more than make out to that record, my friend.

Thanks for your time man, take care.
That's okay bye bye.

Complete interview here: http://www.egigs.co.uk/index.php?a=12163