Grin and Bare It
PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE—You’ve been warned! Now, read on… Just like I knew you would. Warn against it, and folks will try it; attach a sticker and people will buy it; slap an “X” on it, and they will come. No one knows that better than Pee Wee Herman and or knew it better than the most influential band in rock music today—X. Somehow, without X, John Doe is just another pretty voice, and Exene stands alone, barking poetry at the moon. The Red Hot Chili Peppers collectively pledge that that they will never be censored, and that vow will keep rock ‘n roll alive despite what any morbid-minded rock critic might say. The next music writer to declare rock ‘n roll dead better get his ass real fast to a Jane’s Addiction concert, or better yet, take a long listen to Blood Sugar Sex Magic—the Rick Rubin produced Warner Brothers debut by the Peppers-Chili (sic). The album is amazing, melding love songs, punk rock, voodoo, and total sexuality with their trademark through-line of power funk.
Peppers’ Flea, offers that, “ninety percent of rock music being played today is boring, sterile, re-hashed shit”, but goes on to advise that “if someone cares to look, they’ll find the bands that are making art and music which mean something to them”. Those bands must include The Butthole Surfers, Jane’s Addiction, and The Henry Rollins Band who, as part of the Lollapalooza tour, were dissed by LA Times critic Robert Hilburn for not displaying “any sense of community on stage”. Flea states flatly: “Robert Hilburn doesn’t know what he’s talking about”, and goes on to add that the bands on Lollapalooza “are on the cutting edge of rock and roll”. He defines rock and roll as “not giving a fuck about what anyone thinks and doing what you want— that’s what makes it so fresh and beautiful. Those bands are the ones who are summing up what youth are feeling today.” Anthony cites a definite example of camaraderie, recalling when “Ice-T went out with Jane’s Addiction, and, being caught up in the beautiful energy they were creating on stage, did a mad dive into the audience”. John Frusciante wonders “Who the fuck is he (Hilburn) to criticize them? They’re doing art, they’re playing music, and they’re not hurting anybody… For me, punk rock will always be there. For Anthony it will always be there. For Henry Rollins it will always be there. For Robert Hilburn, it has never been there and is never going to be there”. The point here is that you’ve got to be in it (either on stage or in the moshpit) to be part of the community which does indeed exist—not standing on the sidelines segregating and criticizing it.
Where not to look for rock fellowship in LA is in and around the Sunset Strip night-clubs, which is exactly where Spin Magazine went hunting for “the soul of rock and roll” for last month’s cover story. Stalking the Strip for rock’s soul is like touring the Times Square for the Apple’s core—you miss the heart and find only the seeds. Had they hazarded the legendary haunted Laurel Canyon Mansion where the Peppers recorded last month they might have made contact—at least with some disembodied soul. On my own quest, i snuck up to the mansion and peered in a window to a blue-lit room where, legend had it, The Beatles first took LSD, and where Jimi Hendrix may have slept. The Chili Peppers had left, taking all their equipment, offering only four lonely mike stands to the resident spirits. I was not alone. If The Beatles didn’t hallucinate there, I picked up the slack, as a nostalgic vision materialized from behind those empty mikes. Anthony, Flea, Hillel, and Jack appeared in full cock-socked glory, rockin’ in 1984! Could have been the Rhythm Lounge, might have been the Imperial Gardens. It hardly seemed to matter, as long as it wasn’t some yuppified vomitorium. Drugs hadn’t turned on me yet, in fact, they were working fine, and nothing could be finer than being there/then/now—rockin’ with my cock out with the Red Hot Chili Peppers!
With original guitarist Hillel dead, and drummer Jack Irons alive but dearly departed, one might have expected radical changes with the band, but with John Frusciante “fretting”, and Chad Smith “swatting”, the music is magical more so. Ask anyone who knows them: John Sidell —restaurateur and member of the band Fudge Factory— is impressed in that “the Chili Peppers have evolved from the ultimate punk-funk party band to a level of maturity and seriousness on top of that”; Bob Forrest, of Thelonius Monster says, “They’re my friends, and I love them, but I never realized how great they were until I heard every other band trying to rip them off”, and the Too Free Stooges’ Dick Rude labels them “Four Super Balls on Funk.” The Red Hot Chili Peppers haven’t sweetened—they’ve gotten hotter.
In 1984, The Peppers broke out with their self-titled album exhibiting a humanity which holds today. From the song True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes, one might sense a life-affirming passion through a coyote’s eyes, but that all depends on whose eyes you’re looking through. Through lyricist/lead singer Anthony’s big brown ones we see a song about “being a wild man on the loose, living a life in a very free fashion.” The eyes have it. They say “Fuck mankind—let the animals be as they will… I like animals better than I like people.” In 1985 we were treated to the George Clinton produced Freaky Styley, replete with choice cuts; Sly Stone cover, If You Want Me To Stay, and a song not likely to be spun at a C.Y.O. dance—Catholic School Girls Rule. School Girls is not so much a mockery of religion as it is an attack on suppression in the Catholic church. Anthony imparts that the upside of such suppression is that “it makes girls want to experience the beauties of life more than ever… They end up going absolutely sexually berserk.” The Uplift Mofo Party Plan was 1987’s bent offering sending homegrown Hollywood to the heartland with the cuts, Me And My Friends, and Organic Anti-Beat Box Band… “I love Hollywood because I love life, and this is where I spent my life”, says Anthony, with John adding, “those songs, as much as they are an allegiance to Hollywood (in terms of place), are an allegiance to the Hollywood in your heart.” The Uplift Album finishes sensually with Love Trilogy, a tune embracing the total sexual experience. 1988 saw the most hilarious album cover ever on The Abbey Road E.P. giving rackjobbers a chuckle trying to place the cock-sock, a trademark which, according to Anthony, is “retired in Florida, where they’re thinking of doing a sort of Disney World/Universal Studios style monument to it.” They might have to reconsider, what with the Pee Wee Herman incident, but nonetheless Anthony declares, “Long live Pee Wee Herman’s masturbation tendencies!” In 1989, the “new” Chili Peppers gave us the critically hailed Mother’s Milk album, taking us to Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground, deifying Magic Johnson, and letting us re-live obsessive schoolboy fantasies behind Sexy Mexican Maid. Mother’s Milk, the last Peppers album for EMI, launched the boys as a band to be reckoned with. Blood Sugar Sex Magic will send them over the top.
Anthony Kiedis lives in shoeless, shirtless luxury high in the Hollywood Hills where life can still be shared with coyotes. He looks good, some say “beautiful”, having been clean (drug-free) for three years. Regarding his friend and music-mate Hillel Slovak’s death, it would be pat to say that some must die so that others may get clean. Hillel’s inspiration runs so much deeper. “Artistically, I think that the time Hillel was on this earth inspires me more than anything”, says Anthony, “and his artistic life will always be with me as long as I’m alive.” The tremendous cut—Knock Me Down—a love song about Hillel off the Mother’s Milk album—offers more than “just say no” ever could. Sobriety has allowed Anthony to “love himself”, and “love life” today. Sex is also an important and varied experience, resurrected from where “it died” while he was high. He’s never met sex he didn’t like, and relates that “an orgasm feels like, if your anus was a cocoon, and the most beautiful butterfly in the world was born out of your anus, that would be an orgasm.” He’s been thinking about sex since he was six, but lost it for sure at twelve. Loneliness is a feeling that Anthony might embrace, being that “it’s a true feeling… something to ponder, to experience.” And all who care to listen may also experience that feeling on the forthcoming single, Under The Bridge. While Anthony shies from politics, he’s got zero tolerance for racism—his message sent in song, not from a soap-box. Take Power of Equality—a tune that Anthony wrote about “how fucking cool it would be if everyone was considered equally” about, “an imaginary utopia—a feeling one would get if there was no racism in the world.”
Critics have gotten off in the past by saying that “white boys can’t play funk.” Those critics can’t, or won’t hear funk-master George Clinton’s pronouncement—”funk is color-blind.” Hear now, the words of guitarist John Frusciante: “When I was growing up as a fan of the band, that thought seemed very absurd to me. I always saw a very intense seriousness in the Chili Peppers that I think other people didn’t see quite so clearly… Besides, in a state where music is an abstract formation of the cosmos in everything, what the fuck does it matter what color your skin is?” He sees rock ‘n roll coming around as “a mad burst of energy that caused people to thrust their hips”, but his heart lies in the trenches of punk rock, which is “a mad fight against bullshit around you.” Feelings on censorship? “I wouldn’t want to put that ugly tinge on the word ‘feeling'” says John, “I don’t know man, I just play guitar and paint and stuff.”
Flea plays bass, golfs, dives into mosh pits, and will appear as “a man-servant” in Gus Van Sant’s film, My Own Private Idaho. He describes an orgasm as “when art and action come together”, and shares, “I’m frightened most by the thought of chasing myself into a very scary corner of my mind and getting stuck there.” Spotting my tattoo, he warns, “You’ll live to regret having your girl’s name on your arm, because if you’re any kind of a man, you’ll never have it removed.” He shows he’s a man, bearing long lost “Loesha” over his heart, and will remain a man, as he puts it, “tortured, strangled by my own love.” “It’s erroneous,” Flea asserts, “to categorize love as flowered people sitting around in the grass, giving each other massages, when it manifests itself in violence, anger and frustration.” The world seems a much safer place with Flea kicking it all out through his four-stringed love gun. He says he’s “most fulfilled with a burrito in my stomach, a joint in my hand, and swimming pool all around me and Led Zeppelin in my ear.” He’s a big fan of pornography, and lost his virginity at fourteen in a group-sex situation with “a girl who was on twelve quaaludes and a quart of whiskey.” “I jacked-off the other night to Night Shift Nurses”, says Flea, complaining that “the whole Pee Wee Herman thing is really disgusting.” He adamantly declares on record: “Let it be known right now that I jacked-off in several different porno theaters in Hollywood throughout my years—the Pussycat on Santa Monica, and the one on Western. I used to go in there, watch the movie, jack-off on my stomach, and wipe it off on my t-shirt.” All his semen did not, however, get wasted on a t-shirt. One special sperm cell went sacred, doing its part to create his beautiful little “rock star” daughter, Clara. Embossed just for her, he sports a tattoo of pastel-colored elephants playing follow the leader around his bicep, and when she speaks in sentences she’s sure to say something like, “I’m proud to call Flea my dad”.
Chad Smith, looks Clint Eastwood-studly, pale blue eyes piercing beneath a Panama Hat. This big, bad boy is practically fearless-except on the road where he becomes a “pale rider” as “Flea slips into my bed…”. Masturbatory fodder for him is the thought of his old cheerleader girlfriend who used to “don her cheerleader outfit without any underwear and jump around on the bed.” Another nice thought for Chad is the sweet deal—three albums with three to option—his band signed with Warner Brothers Records. Prior Chili Peppers notions of signing elsewhere were quelled by the generosity and honesty of the Warner people—specially record exec, Mo Ostin. Chad says, “The guy who introduced Jimi Hendrix to Duke Ellington and started Reprise with Frank Sinatra can’t be that bad.” Not bad at all. And, yes, “raunch” will always play a part on Chili Peppers’ records with the new album’s Sir Psycho Sexy answering to 1987’s anthem Party on Your Pussy, but the call is, that the cut, Give It Away, will be an anthem for the ’90s because, “you’ve got to give it away to keep it”—a credo nicely fitting the “good time boys” who will forever tip their funky hats to fellow rockers.
— Mark Ebner
