Seems like I'm always talking about the Red Hot Chili Peppers lately. Must have liked one or two things from them on Facebook lately, because suddenly, it seems that I just keep encountering articles and related items.
In any case, one thing that pleases me is the return of guitarist John Frusciante to the band. Frusciante, of course, was the guitarist for the band when they originally broke big back in the early nineties. He left after tensions between him and the rest of the band mounted. There was one particularly memorable - and very public - incident where he arguably sabotaged a performance of RHCP's biggest song, "Under the Bridge," during the live performance on Saturday Night Live back in 1992.
That was a topic that I wrote about here before, and I will add a bit of what I wrote about it later, on the bottom. It includes a couple of videos explaining what happened. It was something about how Frusciante felt snubbed and annoyed, because Madonna was there that night, and she seemed to take an interest in other members of the Peppers, but not Frusciante. Also, Keidas kicked Frusciante during the first song, possibly accidentally but possibly not an accident. Hard to tell. However, the demeanor of the guitarist for the second song - he is the only one wearing a shirt, and he also plays a style of the song that is clearly not expected by the other band members - seems to suggest that he is more than a little angry by that point. Keidas wrote in his book that he believed Frusciante was indeed sabotaging the band's performance, which suffered as a result. Keidas likened it to a football placekicked missing a big kick that could have won the game for the team. It is quite evident at the end of the song that there will be discussion about what just happened.
Indeed, Frusciante and the band parted ways not too much later on.
Frusciante struggled with addiction for years. He had his own demons to wrestle with. And many people - myself included - seemed to feel that a reunion was unlikely.
Yet, here he is, back with the band. I, for one, am glad, because he felt like a better fit to me than Dave Navarro (nothing against him). That was the guitarist back when I saw them in February of 1996 at MSG. So I was pleased that seeing Frusciante this time around would happen. That was the lineup that I always associated with the RHCP when they were at their absolute peak.
Now, as promised, here is more about the infamous SNL '92 incident that became one of the most famous public mishaps of any major rock band. In fact, however, I personally felt that the song came out pretty damn good. It was a strong, albeit different, version of a very familiar song. Sometimes, I like listening to this particular version even better than the original, studio version.
Here was the first performance, Stone Cold Bush:
And here was the infamous version of Under the Bridge:
Guess you can understand why Keidis would feel that Frusciante sabotaged this performance. By this point in the band's history, Keidis and Frusciante were hardly even talking to each other. Keidis described it in his autobiography, Scar Tissue:
“Things deteriorated to the point where John and I didn’t talk on the bus, and if we ran into each other in passing, we wouldn’t even acknowledge each other.”
Keidis continues:
“I had no idea what song he was playing or what key he was in. He looked like he was in a different world. We were on live TV in front of millions of people, and it was torture. I started to sing in what I thought was the key, even if it wasn’t the key he was playing in. I felt like I was getting stabbed in the back and hung out to dry in front of all of America while this guy was off in a corner in the shadow, playing some dissonant out-of-tune experiment. I thought he was doing that on purpose, just to fuck with me.”
You can see that by the second song, Frusciante had put his shirt back on. Admittedly, he did not have the same impressive physique that the other guys in the band had, that same kind of musculature. And by the time that they played Under the Bridge, Frusciante was playing on a different wave length, if you will. Maybe he was deliberately sabotaging a high profile performance, one that was so important, in fact, that it is still remembered today, even many years later.
There had been other factors, as well. Frusciante had felt that Madonna had snubbed him the entire night, for one. And he had almost gotten into a physical altercation with a crew member just before the show, surely adding to the already clearly existing tensions. But it all came out in his performance during Under the Bridge.
And here was the infamous version of Under the Bridge:
Guess you can understand why Keidis would feel that Frusciante sabotaged this performance. By this point in the band's history, Keidis and Frusciante were hardly even talking to each other. Keidis described it in his autobiography, Scar Tissue:
“Things deteriorated to the point where John and I didn’t talk on the bus, and if we ran into each other in passing, we wouldn’t even acknowledge each other.”
Keidis continues:
“I had no idea what song he was playing or what key he was in. He looked like he was in a different world. We were on live TV in front of millions of people, and it was torture. I started to sing in what I thought was the key, even if it wasn’t the key he was playing in. I felt like I was getting stabbed in the back and hung out to dry in front of all of America while this guy was off in a corner in the shadow, playing some dissonant out-of-tune experiment. I thought he was doing that on purpose, just to fuck with me.”
You can see that by the second song, Frusciante had put his shirt back on. Admittedly, he did not have the same impressive physique that the other guys in the band had, that same kind of musculature. And by the time that they played Under the Bridge, Frusciante was playing on a different wave length, if you will. Maybe he was deliberately sabotaging a high profile performance, one that was so important, in fact, that it is still remembered today, even many years later.
There had been other factors, as well. Frusciante had felt that Madonna had snubbed him the entire night, for one. And he had almost gotten into a physical altercation with a crew member just before the show, surely adding to the already clearly existing tensions. But it all came out in his performance during Under the Bridge.
The strange thing is, though, that this version has a certain appeal to it. I remember watching it after reading about it in Scar Tissue, and thinking that, in fact, it added a certain element to a very well-known song that gave it a whole different feel, almost. Admittedly, at some points, it sounded strange, and not so great. But there are points when it sounded even more intense in a way, and when it was a very interesting version of the song.
In any case, it is an interesting story to the history of an unusual and, admittedly, still an interesting band. RHCP have always done things a bit differently, and always stood out from other bands in many ways. I do not want to give the impression that I cannot stand this band, because that is far from the case. Personally, I feel that Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic was one of the very best albums of the nineties. I might place it either as the best overall album, or the second, behind U2's Achtung Baby, in terms of musicality and originality. And that in a decade that was chock full of great and interesting works by new rock artists that seemed to be emerging from all directions, as compared to now, when it sometimes seems that there are few solid rock bands, to the point that some are already proclaiming that rock is dead.
So, I thought it would be interesting to add this video explaining this strange chapter in the band's history a bit further, as well as to add a couple of other links regarding the Chili Peppers.
Enjoy!
You Can Feel The Tension In Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 1992 SNL Performance [Watch] Andrew O'Brien | Friday, February 22nd, 2019:
Here is another interesting link related to the RHCP, where they attempt to rank the best 50 or so songs from the band. Given the huge success of Under the Bridge, it hardly seems like a spoiler to mention that this is number one, which is as it should be. It was far and away the biggest and most iconic song for the band, and I doubt that anybody would even really argue that it deserves to be number one on this list. But other decisions seemed a little more questionable, and seemed to lean on their newer stuff, which I feel does not hold a candle to the brilliance of some of their earlier stuff. There are certain songs, like Soul to Squeeze and I Could Have Lied, which I would have ranked much higher, and other songs, like Aeroplane and Scar Tissue, which I feel are ranked too high. Of course, that is speculative, and everyone has their own opinions on the matter. But to my mind's eye, again, Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic is far and away the band's best album, and when they truly reached their peak on every level. I mean, they were running on all cylinders, and I personally enjoy listening to some of the lesser known tracks on that album over many of the tracks on albums that they released since then. I Could Have Lied is a beautiful song, and if it had been cleaned up for radio play, which would never have featured a song like that which so prominently had some major swear words on it, this could have been another huge hit for the band. And even though Soul to Squeeze was not from that peak album, it still nonetheless had a certain quality from that still relatively early and young phase in the band's history, and just has a kind of free quality and pleasant rhythm to it. Take a look at the list, and see if you agree with this, or not.
Ranking: Every Red Hot Chili Peppers Song From Worst to Best Picking through the blandest Peppers and the songs that'll burn your tongue off BY DAN BOGOSIAN,DAN CAFFREY,DAVID SACKLLAH,WREN GRAVES,KYLE EUSTICE AND PHILIP COSORESON JUNE 17, 2016:
This was the original video that got me on the topic of Frusciante and his return to the RHCP:
Flea says return of guitarist John Frusciante has had a “profound impact” on the Red Hot Chili Peppers By Jonathan Horsley published 5 days ago “The big thing is that we all speak the same language, and when he is in the band we are able to communicate with each other without speaking,” says the Chilis’ bassist
https://www.musicradar.com/news/red-hot-chili-peppers-flea-john-frusciante?fbclid=IwAR2k161H5pdQnLluyegt2Ks-roPSVlSxHDkqt36tudiEnL-OO7YwNuUWWf8
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