Talking about The Official Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll Lists with author Judy McGuire

Since 2000, Judy McGuire has been the author of the “Dategirl” column for the Seattle Weekly, giving practical, necessary advice to Seattle’s dating population. McGuire is a very funny writer, which makes her column a must-read every week. That may be where most Seattleites know her, but she’s also been a rock journalist, writing for magazines, newspapers and websites like High Times (where she was an editor), The Frisky, the Village Voice‘s Sound of the City blog and time.com. She’s also the co-host of the Mike and Judy Show on Heritage Radio Networks.

McGuire’s second book, The Official Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll Lists was just published by Soft Skull Press. It’s a hilarious book that collects lists about its topic with great irreverence, like “28 instances of hot rock progeny,” “17 bands named in homage to that neglected orifice, the asshole,” and “14 tips for clean and sober living from Ozzy Osbourne.” The book is full of guest lists, too, including “Andrew W.K.’s 8 rookie party-thrower mistakes” (No. 3: “No visible trash cans.”), “Cynthia Plaster Caster’s 8 most interesting cocks in rock,” “Princess Superstar’s 7 mistakes guys make when trying to pick up the talent” and “Michael Musto’s List of 11 filthy new songs for Britney Spears.” The introduction was written by Oderus Urungus, the frontman for GWAR (“My views on sex are fairly straightforward. But straightforward for a mutated chaos demon-thing such as myself is still pretty fucked up.”)

On Thursday, Judy McGuire hosts a party for the release of The Official Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll Lists at the Sunset from 6-8pm. About it, she told me, “I have some lovely prizes—including a contribution from Babeland—for people who show up and win the trivia contests, and I’ll be reading a couple pieces (short—don’t worry!) and [KEXP DJ/writer] Kurt B. Reighley will read his contribution. He’ll be playing great music and there will be surprises (which I haven’t come up with yet).”

I chatted with Judy McGuire via Gchat about writing the book, why it was deemed “irredeemably filthy” by its publisher, why you’ll have to click on a NSFW site to read “Jiz Lee’s five songs about fisting,” how writing this book was different than her first book, How Not to Date, and the correct pronoun for addressing Oderus Urungus.

How did your book become the Official Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll lists?

I was at BEA a couple years ago and ran into my friend (and now partner-in-radio), Mike Edison, who’s an editor at Backbeat Books. He showed me The Official Book of Heavy Metal Lists, that they’d just put out. So I pitched him this idea on the spot.  He was interested, so I wrote a proposal and they bought it.

Note they did NOT publish it!

No, it was Soft Skull that published it, right?

Yeah, we were pretty much on-press and one of the bigwigs at Backbeat’s parent company started reading the intro by Oderus from Gwar and blew a gasket. I guess he then went through and read the whole thing and his head exploded. It was deemed irredeemably filthy and cancelled. They were nice enough to let me keep my advance AND give me all the files. So I resold it to Soft Skull and it came out nearly a year later than it was supposed to be published.

Oh wow. Was there anything in particular they objected to? I loved the book for that reason. I mean, I didn’t think it was irredeemably filthy, but (even if it was) most of rock n’ roll is anyway.

I asked if there was one list I could kill—we’d already (sadly) had to pull “Jiz Lee’s Five Songs about Fisting,” which Fleshbot published—but no. The whole tone was deemed not family friendly. Which seems crazy since it’s not called “The Official Book of Warm Cuddles and Puppies” or anything.

Right. when Fleshbot published that list, I went to see how many songs from it were in the catalog on Rdio.

A lot of them are on Youtube with accompanying disturbing videos.

If I had the time, I would’ve made playlists on Spotify of a lot of these lists, like “100 Songs About Fucking.”

I need to do that. And who knew there were 101 Songs about Heroin!?

Right! I had no idea!

I thought there might be 20.

I was just going to ask what you learned while doing the research for the book.

Well, one thing I tried to make clear is that I KNOW it’s not exhaustive, by any stretch. I know how fanboys/girls get and I fully admit I missed a lot. I mean, when you’re including pretty much every genre of music the kids like, there’s a lot of stuff.

One of the more interesting lists is how many people died from choking on their own puke. And reading about Murry Wilson again is always disturbing. The Keith Richards memoir was an excellent source!

I loved that list. That, along with Ozzy’s tips for Sober Living were the ones I remember the most, I think.

Oh, yeah—Ozzy’s quite the prolific “health” columnist! Motley Crue also had many helpful tips! I loved Tommy Lee’s “spooge” font in his book. I wish I could’ve recreated something like that.

I learned SO MUCH from reading The Dirt.

One of the best rock bios. I can’t believe Neil Strauss went on to become a creepy pickup artist. Did you read The Game? Ugh.

He was a really great rock journalist for a long time, but I can’t bring myself to read that.

I felt I had to for research purposes.

Maybe he realized that music journalists never get laid. At least as far as I can tell.

The ones who aren’t angry at the world for not giving them Heidi Klum have a better chance. That was just such a disturbing book.

I’m sure that’s true. It sounds way too awful for me to bother reading. Was there any other research you had to do that was particularly disturbing, like reading The Game?

Nah, it was mostly pretty funny. I’m really bad at asking people for favors—especially people I don’t know. So asking people to contribute was the hardest part. But most people were so nice! Even if they couldn’t do it, they were cool about it. One comedian I’m actually friends with got mad at me for asking, so that was weird. But mostly everyone was great. And so prompt!

And when am I ever going to get another midnight call from Evan Seinfeld? He wound up not contributing, but wasn’t a flake about it. Andrew W.K. was one of the first people I thought of and he was so funny and quick. That guy’s a professional.

I am so grateful for everyone who took the time to do this. I couldn’t believe how great everyone was. They’re all so busy and it was so nice.

I was also just going to ask about getting people to contribute to it. I love that Oderus from GWAR wrote the foreward.

He is HILARIOUS! And also a pro! At first I just interviewed it and cobbled together his quotes into what I thought was a good intro. I sent it to him and he sent back a complete rewrite! I meant, I interviewed HIM, though Oderus would probably consider himself an “it.”

Hahahahaha! I often say that my favorite part of being a music writer is that research is mostly reading magazines and listening to CDs. Was it like that while researching the book?

Oh, yeah. I got a subscription to Rolling Stone because that’s the only way you can access their archives (without, you know, leaving the house—the horror!). I read tons of rock bios, magazines, interviewed people—it was a ton of research. But damn, if I’d written this book pre-internet, I’d probably still be on page 10.

How long did it take you to do the research?

I’m not sure exactly, because I got diagnosed with melanoma in the middle of everything and my freakout delayed things a bit. Probably six months or so. I am fine now, btw.

Oh right. I’m glad you’re much better now!

Thanks!

There was a little bit of nudging people too. It’s hard to be a nag when people are doing you a favor, though.

I know exactly what you mean by that. One of the things that’s hardest for me is to say, “you know that favor you said you’d do for me, are you still doing it? Soon?”

Yes. And it’s not even like most of the people were friends!

I couldn’t even imagine having to do that. All of my anxieties would go through the roof. How was writing this book different than writing How Not to Date?

How Not to Date required me to write in complete sentences, which this book really didn’t! And a lot of the “research” in that book came out of my head, so it was a lot easier. The only hard part came when I found out I’d been given an incorrect word count and had to come up with an extra 15,000 words in a few days. That’s why there are interviews peppered throughout.

I had no idea!

That’s good.

Can you talk a little bit about the artist who did all of the illustrations for this new book? The drawings are brilliant.

Cliff Mott is amazing. He also did the illos in the punk rock book of lists and the heavy metal book of lists. Here’s his website: http://cliffmott.com. He’s done tons of rock posters for different shows around town, including a lot of the Loser’s Lounge shows, which is a thing Joe McGinty (also a contributor!) does every month or so. He’s also a sweetheart.

He really is amazing. Did you know him before working on the book?

Incredibly, because we know all the same people, we didn’t. He’s an old pal of Mike Edison’s, and Mike is an old friend of mine. We’ve been going to the same shows forever too.

That is really incredible. I’ve met a few people in situations like that, that we have mutual friends and go to the same shows for years. I’ll ask one more question, because I’m sure you have tons of other things to do today.

Yes, I’m very important and busy. I need to print out my plane tickets!

Have any Beatles fans taken offense at how you’ve written about them in the book?

Oh, god, who cares!? Kidding. My friend Bob is perpetually annoyed with me for disliking the Beatles, but he didn’t have to live through the childhood trauma of hearing “Hey Jude, I saw you nude/don’t try to fake it, I saw you naked.” These things scar a person.

Ha! They will! I just asked because I encounter a lot of superfans who have NO sense of humor about their favorite bands. And sacred cows come no more sacred…

Beatles or Rolling Stones; Clash or Sex Pistols. I’m a Stones/Clash girl, though I do actually like the Sex Pistols.

I like all 4, but definitely prefer Stones/Clash.

I’ve never seen Star Wars either, which nobody can ever fathom.

You’re not missing much.

Humorless fans take the joy out of music. Music should be about having fun, not dissecting every note and studying every nuance.

{The release party for Judy McGuire’s The Official Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll is on Thursday, June 14 at the Sunset, 6-8pm, all ages and free. More info here.}