Musician Duff McKagan's column runs every Wednesday on Playbook Sounds.

In August 1987, I was headed out to play my first-ever arena tour. The Cult gave GN’R the opening slot for a tour that would cross Canada, come down the West Coast, and then shoot across to the Southwest and finally end in New Orleans.

I met Cult guitarist especial Billy Duffy on that first night in Halifax, Nova Scotia -- that was nearly 25 years ago now -- and even way back then, his soccer team Manchester City was on an epic losing streak of 20 or so years.

I could empathize. I am, after all, from Seattle.

You can’t mess around when talking or writing about English football. If you are an American, and don’t know much about that whole scene over there, be careful about saying such throwaway things as “I think I’ll pull for Liverpool this year.” I did that once in an interview with some UK magazine. I mean, why not? The Beatles are from Liverpool, and I thought it was a fairly innocuous and tame thing to state. No. I caught a whole rash of crap from each city I went to in England after that.

Manchester, England, is a city about the same size as Seattle or, say, Cleveland. Imagine if Cleveland had the Browns and the Steelers both hailing from the same city? Or if Seattle had the Seahawks and the Raiders? And both teams had originated from different sides of town, and had somehow split the fandom somewhere right down the middle of town.

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Have you ever had a big list of things you plan to accomplish on a Saturday or day off, only to realize at the end of the day that you accomplished almost none of it? YOU ARE A CHOKER.

Have you ever mustered up the courage to talk to a girl or guy at a bar, only to then fumble on your words when you were face to face? YOU ARE A CHOKER.

Ever failed to complete a diet or exercise program? CHOKER.

Failed to keep a New Year’s resolution? CHOKER.

Quit reading a book before the end? CHOKED!

Not eaten everything on your plate? CHOKE!

Gone to bed before midnight? GAG!

Died? EPIC LATE-LIFE CHOKE!

Won an MVP, only to miss two late-game free throws in Game 2 of the second round of the playoffs? Depends on how you do the rest of the series.

If you head to Worcester, Mass., tonight to watch the "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour," expect to see athletes perform.

What?

They are everywhere. Athletes show some acrobatics through "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and then others do free-running parkour to "Thriller" and hip-hop dancers deftly dribble basketballs to the choreography of "Jam."

The theatrics of the two-hour show are produced by Cirque du Soleil, which uses Jackson's music along with Cirque du Soleil's signature acrobatic performance style to create a realistic concert experience.

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Google "animated graphic novel" and you won't find much. But you will find this: "Bottom of the Ninth," a unique, baseball-themed, soon-to-be-released story from Hollywood animator, character designer and storyboard artist Ryan Woodward.

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I don’t think anyone would disagree with me when I say that the audio in “Madden NFL 12” was a complete wreck.

Luckily for gamers, EA Sports not only recognized the failure of everything from the commentary to the crowd chants, they set out to make “Madden 13” the most dynamic and intense-sounding football video game ever created.

Check out the video playbook, starring ESPN’s own Mark Schlereth, as he goes behind the scenes with the “Madden” producers to get the lowdown on the game’s booming new audio.

From authentic quarterback cadences straight from the vaults of NFL Films, to the addition of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz to the booth complete with 9,000 lines of commentary, to the new 24-track crowd recordings to better capture that raw emotion from every seat in the house (“Madden 12” only featured a four-track recording), EA Sports went all out this year to please the ears.

But will it be enough to satisfy the “Madden” masses? We’ll have to wait until the game drops August 28 to find out.

Danica Patrick had a disappointing NASCAR Sprint Cup race debut at Daytona, finishing 38th. She hasn’t won a Nationwide Series event in 33 tries, with only one top-5 finish. And she didn’t exactly tear up the IndyCar Series, either, with one victory in 115 races.

Even so, she continues to be an extremely powerful marketing personality, trailing only legendary drivers Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and John Force in the name-recognition metric known as the Q Score.

That helps explain Thursday’s announcement that she would become the first female member of the Coca-Cola Racing Family. She also became the first member of that group to be associated with a sole brand: Coke Zero.

According to the Q Score Company, 76 percent of people in its annual poll were familiar with Patrick, much higher than the 48 percent average for all active and retired race car drivers. The figure is also a solid increase from the 69 percent of people who were familiar with her in last year’s poll.

Enough of those people ranked her as one of their favorites to earn her a positive Q Score of 19, again much higher than the average for all active and retired drivers, which is 13. Last year, her Q Score was even higher at 22, but the president of the Q Score Company, Henry Schafer, said that should not be much of a concern.

“Her growth in familiarity outpaced her appeal,” said Schafer, “hence the slightly lower Q Score this year. This is not a significant drop and still keeps her positive Q Score above average.”

Patrick also rates high among women athletes with at least a 40 percent awareness, behind only Shawn Johnson, Anna Kournikova, Kristi Yamaguchi, Peggy Fleming and Maria Sharapova.

Patrick has one thing those women don’t have, however: She’s part of a sport where fans are fiercely brand-loyal. According to a study by Taylor, 61 percent of NASCAR fans from ages 18 to 35 will buy a sponsor’s product if it is the same price as a competitor’s product. Fourteen percent would buy the sponsor’s product even if it were more expensive.

The combination of Patrick’s appeal and her being part of a sport in which fans in a key demographic are brand-loyal makes her a marketer’s dream.

“She’s an extremely appealing figure for Coke Zero because she basically represents everything the brand does,” said Sharon Byers, Coca-Cola’s senior vice president for sports and entertainment. “It’s one of our biggest growing brands. Her appeal to young adult men is the exact consumer base that we want to connect.”

Patrick, who will race in her second Sprint Cup Series race this weekend at the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, has already proved to be a successful spokeswoman in her well-known endorsement deal with GoDaddy.com. The Web domain registration company reported that within 15 minutes of its first Patrick ad during the 2011 Super Bowl, domain registrations jumped 466 percent over the previous year. This year, the company set a Sunday sales record and also broke its one-day mark for mobile website traffic following the airing of two Super Bowl commercials featuring Patrick.

Patrick’s other endorsement deals include Nationwide Insurance, Tissot, Chevrolet, Peak Antifreeze, William Rast clothing and Hot Wheels.

Go ahead. Try to find a final day of a sport -- in America, or in any country -- more dramatic than Sunday, when the Barclays Premier League in England wrapped up its season in a most astonishing fashion.

For a recap of Manchester City's dazzling comeback to steal the title from Manchester United, go here. For a new twist on the most epic of soccer/football mornings/afternoons, artist Richard Swarbrick created some fresh illustrations on his website, and was gracious enough to share them with Playbook Visuals:

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