2024.06.05 - Seattle Times - Mike McCready, Duff McKagan, Jay Inslee and others remember Kenny Down

Mike McCready, Duff McKagan, Jay Inslee and others remember Kenny Down

By Erik Lacitis
Seattle Times staff reporter

Halfway through Pearl Jam’s show on May 30 at Climate Pledge Arena, Eddie Vedder paused for an announcement.

“At the beginning of this tour, Mike McCready was having to play through some pain,” Vedder said of the band’s lead guitarist. “He lost his dear friend and spiritual guide, who lost his battle with cancer. His name was Kenny Down … I just want to thank Kenny personally for taking care of our great friend and bandmate.”

Down died May 5 of liver cancer at age 62.

He was a Ballard kid whose world straddled the early punk rock days in Seattle, the fishing industry and its battles for sustainability in Alaska waters, and his work with Alcoholics Anonymous.

As I interviewed people for Down’s obituary, those from one of these worlds sometimes were surprised to learn about the others.

McCready has been open about battling substance use and helping others in the addiction recovery process.

Down’s wife, Shannon Down, said McCready was a weekly dinner guest at their Magnolia home.

At the public memorial service Saturday for Down, McCready and Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan will perform one of Down’s favorite songs: Johnny Thunders’ “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory.”

McKagan remembers the days around 1979 and in the early ’80s, when he and others were part of Seattle’s punk rock scene, before a handful of them became famous.

After playing at a small venue for maybe 100 people, they’d hang out at the “House of Ken,“ a home Down rented in the University District.

“When the gigs were over, we didn’t want it to be over,” McKagan said. “We would play more music on a record player. We were having the most fun of anybody on the planet.”

McKagan, too, is in recovery. “We were good friends from a long time ago,” he said of Down. “We have been through the same wars.”

For the memorial, Gov. Jay Inslee, who will be overseas, asked that a video he made be shown. He was part of one of Down’s other worlds.

In the video, Inslee says, “I really got to know Kenny when I was in Congress … to bring more safety to our fishing industry, to our hardworking people in the seas … It’s hard to get things through Congress, and Kenny was a force of nature.”

For six years, until 2018, Down was CEO of the Seattle-based Blue North Fisheries (now part of Bristol Wave Seafoods), which operated freezer longline vessels harvesting cod in the North Pacific. Longline fishing gets its name from a long, horizontal fishing line, up to a mile long, from which hang baited hooks. Trawlers have had a contentious relationship with this type of fishing.

Trawlers use enormous nets that are towed behind boats, the largest of which can scoop up 200,000 pounds of fish in a single tow. Inevitably, there is accidental bycatch, such as chum salmon.

Inslee nominated Down to a powerful federal fishery council that helps manage the 200-mile harvest zone off Alaska. It was a move blasted by trawler industry groups, which long have had strong council representation.

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Rest of the article here:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mike-mccready-duff-mckagan-jay-inslee-and-others-honor-the-life-of-kenny-down/