Red Hot Chili Peppers

I have a confession to make: One Hot Minute (1995) is my favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Now this is ABSOLUTE blasphemy to any true RHCP fan, but honestly, in general I think they’re a good and entertaining band, but I’m not that ga-ga over them really.

Obviously Hillel Slovak was THE guitarist for RHCP. He was an original founding member of the band who truly defined their sound. And he was a motherfucking bad ass to boot. Too bad for that whole speedball (yeah, that’s heroin and cocaine mixed and injected I point out while banging my head on the desk…) overdose thing. The band probably would have folded, and almost certainly would have faded into LA scene flash-pan-fame status, were it not for a young guitarist who could ape Hillel’s style possibly better than Hillel himself named John Frusciante.

I consider Frusciante one of my favorite guitar players; falling somewhere after Derek Bailey, Jimi Hendrix, Blind Boy Fuller, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Charlie Byrd, Grant Green, and young Jimmy Page. Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) is easily the most solid and defining album RHCP ever made; the band is enviously OoH THAT’S TIGHT throughout. Try to not dance along; seriously. You know, though? I don’t dance unless you’re cute enough to talk me into it. My only real gripe with BSSM is that it is way too long, with a couple stupid filler songs like “Apache Rose Peacock” and “Sir Psycho Sexy” (I know; how hypocritical to knock the song I quoted four sentences ago).

As fate would have it, the success of BSSM and the stress of the resulting tour compelled Frusciante to quit the band, become a recluse and go on a six year heroin binge. Fortunately, before the spiral he created Niandra Ladies and Usually Just a T-Shirt (released in 1994) which is in my opinion the most entrancingly erotic sound poem ever created. During the spiral, he made Smile From the Streets You Hold (released in 1997), a heart-wrenchingly pained album I also love and am so glad I got ahold of before he pulled it off the market.

One Hot Minute is the only album RHCP made during Frusciante’s hiatus, and they made it with Dave Navarro on guitar. Truth be told, Navarro strikes me as a TOOL. However, while I like RHCP, I LOVE Jane’s Addiction, of which Navarro is a founding member. I’ve never been able to logically understand how Navarro fits with Jane’s Addiction; his hairband/metal influenced playing should theoretically contrast with Stephen Perkin’s tribal drumming, Eric Avery’s ingenious (understatement!!!) bass lines and Perry Farrell’s whiney, echoplex-infused voice. His layered, often pseudo-psychedelic sound is cleverer than you’d ever guess just by looking at the guy, though. I don’t care what anybody says; Jane’s Addiction was the best thing that came out of the ‘80’s.

I love the lyrics of OHM. Anthony Kiedis is possibly the most annoying frontman of any band ever, but I think the more melodic vocal approach he discovered while making BSSM positively encouraged him to rely less on white boy rap and try some new shit, including ACTUALLY SINGING, straight-up narration (anybody else think he was listening to a lot of Lou Reed around this time?) and vocal effects that would not have happened without Navarro’s “studio sound” approach. The real RHCP is a band that writes by jamming out riffs in their garage/mansion, whereas Navarro is obviously the let’s-sit-in-the-studio-for-months-pushing-buttons-and-see-what-happens type. The fine-tuning that went into OHM as well as the obvious (and obviously self-medicated) shit that the members were going through at the time makes OHM refreshingly introspective. Somehow, however, it remains celebratory and more or less avoids preachiness. My personal biases are evident in the fact that I think “One Big Mob” contains the best drumming of any RHCP song ever, and of course it’s the Stephen Perkins added drum parts I’m talking about.

It was obvious that the band was never going to go anywhere with Navarro, and I was as excited as everyone else when Frusciante cleaned up, came back and delivered in spades on Californication (1998), another beautiful album with Kiedis doing more singing. But, for starters, what happened to the guy who brilliantly tuned Chad Smith’s snares on BSSM? Californication is predictably pop-py; saccharine even. Is the title track, about everyone selling out to marketable Hollywood, meant to be ironic? Somewhere in all the drug rehab they lost the edge that would have prevented them from singing about anal sex and making it sound pretty back in the old days. I actually find myself missing the white boy rap.