Extra Raw Magazine review of Smile
1998, from Extra Raw Magazine
The only proper response to John Frusciante’s most recent work is to rave that it’s touched by brilliance. Perhaps even more stark than his 1994 solo debut (after he left the Red Hot Chili Peppers), Smile From The Streets You Hold captures the very essence of Frusciante’s strung-out psyche.
While drug addiction has shown up as a major theme in so many musicians’ compositions, rarely have I seen the narcotic element of a junkie’s primary process examined quite so thoroughly. I mean, the guy is babbling so damn bad that I could barely figure out what was wrong with him. Playing the most dastardly disjointed guitar over a painful yelp of a voice, John-boy psychotically bares himself naked during seventeen different songs. Seriously, this disc is so wasted that it makes Johnny Thunders’ Hurt Me lp look like 30 days in rehab.
Without the slightest trace of a band, Frusciante double tracks a few vocals, overdubs a guitar or two, and basically vents his angst-ridden spleen. Uncompromisingly direct and suitability tortured, the man has a fully formed artistic vision that is almost as insular as it is twisted. On songs like Well I’ve Been Frusciante plays frenetic, brittle guitar and howls like the wounded animal that he is. The totally expressive nature of Frusciante’s character is inspirational and more than a little frightening. This disc is ultimately about synthetic pleasure and real pain and what they will get you in the long run.
—Mitch Myers
