Johnny Marr is on it apparently.

haha, word?

man I never got how you guys like Frusciante's solo work and RHCP's body of work. they seem so different in every way; RHCP oozes jamband and Frusciante is all full of DESPAIR or LIEF or whatever emotion shep's got an identity in.

haha, not lief at all. lief was a way of thinking life as ridiculous, absurd and exciting.

and, hello broad music tastes!

well i meant the same level of passion, people seem to group frusciante and rhcp together. and its not like comparing Tupac to Elliott Smith, so it's just weird since they're in a relatively similar genre and GW likes both but I've always found RHCP intolerable.

i mean steel i'd agree about later rhcp records, that is, if i didn't already know the guys so well by the time stadium arcadium and the other shit they've done in the past 5 or 6 years came out. cos i listen to it sometimes, when i forget what it sounds like, and stadium arcadium especially i really can't listen to apart from a couple of tracks. i think at the beginning, they were a band of fairly unintelligent young men who just had a big old hard on for life and that was, and still is, attractive to me. cos they fucked up a lot, too, and it kept their GIVE IT AWAY nonsense meaningful, cos i knew they were a bunch of drug addicts barely keeping a handle on their shit. the fact they were never that smart doesn't really matter to me.

the past couple records have been a lot less interesting though. they are just elder statesmen of pop music playing their same old game now, and who cares about that. john hasn't been doing that though, he's fairly consistently been trying new things and while i do not like his recent records as much as i like niandra and smiles i can at least respect he isn't just pumping out bullshit, the fact he's pumping out anything at all while he's a part of probably the most famous band in the world (or was a couple of years ago at least) tells me he's in this for more than the game that anthony is in it for, for example.

so maybe i used to lump john and the rhcp (and probably the mars volta too) all together, i don't really anymore. i still love blood sex sugar magic, there's just sometimes about that time in music that i really like - it's the same feelings i get when i listen to kurt cobain, although not as much cos i was never as into nirvana. californication is okay, by the way is probably better but has a lot of songs i hate and SA is 50% unbearable and the others varying. i dunno i mean it seems like you've really got something against them and i dunno what it is? rhcp are maybe nothing that special but i can't accept UTTER SHIT cos while they may be now they've certainly done things and have always been at least fairly unique. i mean i can't think of another band who sound like them - i can think of imitators, i can think of influences - but they sound like their own even if they have been festering in their own body fluids for a decade now

i mean you can't say elliott smith is amazing and then turn around and say john frusciante is a worthless dick, cos they have done in their solo music pretty much the same things. elliott was more of a simple honest guy though while john was a nutter who didn't make sense but it was the same idea of OH GOD MY LIFE sad sacks with them and i don't mean to insult either cos i love them both equally.


WOW. i dunno why i just wrote this.

idk I for one like RHCP mainly for Frusciantes work within it. also i don't know why you use JAM BAND as an insult. maybe it's because I play guitar but I find a lot of jamming to be really cool and interesting to listen to!

ehhhhhhh i like rhcp but that's all im sayin about that!


and what's lief (seriously what is lief)

i have been in love with when shadows collide ever since i first listened to it a couple months ago, and I've been putting off getting Niandra. gotta do that soon

jesus fucking christ

i've always thought the smiths were kind of gay but why is this such a bad thing?

oh! yeah i've never really liked the smiths (this is 100% because of morrissey, however. he's really annoying imo)

and what's lief (seriously what is lief)

a word I came up with during my targ years which I wrote an essay about and never published it..
it is known because it used to be my siggy.


also been told Flea is finally learning musical theory at some university? hah

"If Morrissey told me not to eat meat, then I would eat meat, because I hate Morrissey" ~Robert Smith (vegetarian)

My friend has a photo of him with johnny marr and if I remember rightly they have a really similar expression on their faces. I think it's one of his most prized possessions

johnny marr had that one awful album though. I think the modest mouse one kind of sucked but that's more for isaac brock trying too hard. so we'll see how this turns out.

"If Morrissey told me not to eat meat, then I would eat meat, because I hate Morrissey" ~Robert Smith (vegetarian)

Robert Smith should shut the fuck up because I hate him.
Not defending Morrissey though

Johnny Marr made The Smiths. Of course, Morrissey's words were always brilliant and funny and heartbreaking and literate and all of those things, but without Marr's music behind them, they would have been relegated to schoolboy poetry grade (see also: Morrissey's solo work). Marr somehow yinged Morrisey's yang.

On the subject of that other band; the Chili Peppers were (along with Nirvana) the first band that made me sit up and pay attention to pop or rock music. They'll always have that. And yes, they've released a lot of really awful music (see: some of their 80s output, the whole of One Hot Minute, the whole of Stadium Arcadium), there was something about their sound that grabbed me. I blew the dust off By the Way a few weeks ago and it really is a masterful pop album, so reminiscent of some lost great early 70s californian album. Even now, I'm still a sucker for Frusciante's signature guitar tone (that one that sounds like sun kissed palm trees in the Hollywood hills) and his harmonies on By the Way are superb. Going back some, Californication is a real hit-and-miss record, but has some inspired moments. Though I haven't listened to it in a couple of years, I maintain that BloodSugarSexMagik is brilliant. So yeah, Anthony Kiedis goofing around and getting a boner isn't too inspiring. But sometimes they overcame that enough to be quite awesome. Sometimes.

As for John's solo work, when I was 15 or 16, it was like having my very own Brian or Dennis Wilson. Super-obscure (despite being in what at the time were one of the biggest bands around) his (then) 3 solo records weren't really recognised by anyone, largely because 2 of them were out of print and supremely rare. Niandra and Smiles were attractive because they came from a place of darkness (even though like, every rockstar ever has done heroin, these somehow at the time seemed to rise above any kind of rock lore bullshit and appeared to glisten with artistic integrity and "authenticity"), were super lo-fi and mysterious, lending themselves to extreme scrutiny by a teenage fanboy. Of course, they had some real good songs on there too. So there it is.

I agree One hot Minute and SA blows, but what 80s songs are you thinking of? I can't think other than what, thirty dirty birds and lovin and touchin


man I love those old songs
specially the ones nobody talks about like:
* Mommy where's daddy
* Walking on down the road
* Organic Anti-Beat box Band
* The Brothers Cup
* American Ghost Dance
* Buckle Down
* What it is
* Johnny Kick a hole in the sky
and of course
* Grand Pappy du plenty

and I may be odd here
but I think THE song that sums up RHCP, and specially the spirit of BSSM is the verse of Mellowship Slinky

yes, RHCP is in a special place in my heart. And so is John.

Niandra LaDes appeals to me because of his flippant disregard for making music that most people would want to hear. It was like he was too fucked up to even care, and I don't hear the "oh my life is so hard and bad" sad-sack shit in there, just a tragic mess of a dude layering some pretty interesting melodies while squawking some perverted shit into a mic.

Smile From the Streets You Hold is also great because the whole purpose of its creation was to get money for more heroin and he was on the verge of schizophrenia thinking he was being visited by spirits, and you can hear that through the whole thing.