Monkey_Julius_BoWaffle
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RHCP/Scar Tissue/John Frusciante
I actually started to post this in the "When Did Flea Join Fear" thread, but thought I'd make this its own thread:
| Quote: | Originally posted by mattybar
as it happens, i'm halfway through reading Scar Tissue at the moment (Anthony Kiedis' autobiography) and he said as the Chili Peppers started to gain
momentum and make a name for themselves, Fleas was getting busier and busier so Lee Ving told Flea he had to choose between the two and he chose RCHP.
Great book by the way.
I haven't really cared much for the band since I was about 14 or something but I had no idea just how fucked up they all were back then.
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Scar Tissue is one of the best rock bios I have ever read, I LOVED it. I read it last October and I'm
thinking about reading it again. Supposedly, HBO are working on a show based on his younger years in the book called Spider & Son.
I'm one of those RHCP fans that actually digs the latter day stuff a lot more than the early funkier stuff. I think Californication and By The Way are
incredible albums. Too bad John Frusciante left again, he is one hell of a guitarist/songwriter and without him I don't think they would have ever
scaled the heights they did even if the fame damn near killed him...
I mean, you wanna talk about somebody that got FUCKED UP, look up some Frusciante videos on Youtube. that dude was FUCKED. Here's pt. I of an
interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKc9B-Eh3Ak) - I almost have to believe the guy was near death around this time. Here's the short film Johnny Depp
made called "Stuff" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx7oJ7-Xjpg) where he basically just took a video camera around Frusciante's home which had become a fucking total
drug-den pit. The music playing in the background of the film is from Frusciante's first solo album, shit he recorded on a 4 track. - CREEPY sounding
shit. I LOVE Frusciante's solo shit. The song that starts at 1:14 "Running Away Into You" is pretty eerie and kick-ass all the same.
Glad the guy was able to pull it all together and rejoin the band and take them to even greater heights than they achieved with "Blood, Sugar, Sex,
Magick". The record they did without Frusciante post BSSM ("One Hot Minute") with Dave Navarro didn't do NEARLy as good, but once John cleaned up,
rejoined, WHAM, they became bigger than ever before with "Californication" - the guy is an amazing songwriter, an even more amazing guitar player.
Seriously some of you guys might really dig Frusciante's solo shit. Only the first couple of records are the really lo-fi, sort of eerie sounding shit
you hear on the "Stuff" short film. The others all vary in sound/style, but I love nearly all of them.
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Monkey_Julius_BoWaffle
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Oh yeah, the guy that appears at about 7:45 in the "Stuff" film is actually Timothy Leary.
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clevohardcore
* Kick\'n ass on the wild side *
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Mood: Sick Of It All, Youth Of Today
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What a mess. Is he back to that shit or is he still clean?
Each aspect of the soul has it's own part to play, but the ideal is harmonious agreement with reason and control.
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Colin
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I'll have to check his books out, one of the few mainstream groups I have an ounce of respect for, actually quite a bit
record collectors are pretentious assholes
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Monkey_Julius_BoWaffle
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| Quote: | Originally posted by clevohardcore
What a mess. Is he back to that shit or is he still clean? |
He cleaned up before rejoining the Peppers and
writing/recording Californication. He had a LOT of recovery to be done. His teeth had all rotted and were so infected, they were actually afraid the
infection from 'em might kill him. Eventually, they got 'em all pulled and got him some false teeth. Also, he had NASTY skin infections from where he
never learned to inject himself correctly. The house he was living in (the one in the "Stuff" short) burned down and he lost a lot of his guitars and
barely made it out himself. When he rejoined the Peppers, he was living in a tiny little apt. & was broke and Flea had told Keidis that the only way
he would be interested in going on with the band was if he could talk John into coming back. So he went, talked to John and asked if he would like to
come back and John broke down crying and said he would love that more than anything in the world.
Rejoined, wrote "Californication" and the rest is history. The guy is a musical genius. I have to wonder what their next album will be like now that
John has quit the band again (this time, he just wanted to quit to do his own records, not like the first time when the fame was actually making him
go insane). He's a prime case of a kid who got too much too quick. He worshipped the Peppers, especially Hillel Slovak, their original guitarist who
died from a Heroin OD and joining the band was a dream come true. But after he joined and started writing a large portion of their material and the
band ballooned into the megastars they became, he couldn't handle it and turned to heroin and crack.
Frusciante is devinitely a survivor. I would say by an extremely thin margin, but he DID survive. I would have to think that another year and he would
have never made it...
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Monkey_Julius_BoWaffle
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Blackout Colin
I'll have to check his books out, one of the few mainstream groups I have an ounce of respect for, actually quite a bit |
DEFINITELY read the Keidis autobiography "Scar Tissue", it's seriously one of those books I did not want to finish. I was actually
sad when I finished it I enjoyed it so damn much. Great read. And I was NOT a RHCP fan AT ALL when I bought the book. I thought "Under the Bridge" was
a cool song, but other than that, not so much. However, after reading the book (or really during the time I was reading the book), like a lot of
really good musician/bio's can sometimes do, I developed an interest in checking them out and got a hold of their entire discography. And discovered
that I really really liked a LOT of the stuff from "Californication" and "By The Way" as well as some of the "Stadium Arcadium" stuff. Still not so
hot on their first 3 albums. "Mother's Milk" is pretty decent and "Blood Sugar Sex Magick" is pretty good, but it's really "Californication" on that I
fell in love with. The irony is, I had heard quite a few of those songs many times before when MTV played the videos all the time, but for some
reason, they just never clicked with me back then. But I really appreciate those albums and especially John's guitar playing/writing nowadays.
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mattybar
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I basically lost interest in them when One Hot Minute came out.
That was also the first time I ever got to see them play live and as amazing a guitarist Dave Navarro is (i love the first few JA albums) they were
just kinda boring live and I was very disappointed. I think the first ever band shirt I got was a Chili Peppers shirt.
When I saw those clips of Frusciante bugging out a few months ago though it really shocked me.
the other week I started reading up on them on Wikipedia after a friend of mine was raving to me about MOther's Milk and I realised I hadn't listened
to them for years. I had no idea Kiedis started using again after Blood Sugar... came out.
Right now I'm at the point in the book where he's talking about touring with Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam. Two things that really surprised me when
I was reading last night: Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins was apparently an incredible basketball player. Also had no idea Pearl Jam actually
toured with Nirvana.
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