Dear Friends,
Over the past few days, I’ve heard about a couple of very horrible things. They aren’t my stories to tell, but it seems like too many people are dealing with loss right now and there is nothing I can do about it except do my best to be a friend.
My heart is reaching out in so many directions to comfort people. Just know, if you are out there hurting, I am here.
*****
Jane’s Addiction and Love and Rockets tonight with Michael. I’m pretty darn stoked about it. The years have flown by since I’ve seen either band, more for Love and Rockets but based on what I’ve been hearing about these shows so far, we are in for a treat.
Rock and roll is here today.
*****
There was a time in my life when I probably would have said that Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s Addiction was my favorite record. The feeling I get now, after so many years of not listening to it, is visceral. The record was a part of me for so long and then got sort of trampled out of me. It’s a sad tale.
At the time that it came out, I was living in an apartment in central Phoenix with Jeff, Michael, and Brian. We partied all the time and I pretended to go to Phoenix College. Well, “pretend” sound’s worse than it really was. I was making an effort to be a student for the teachers I liked and for the ones I didn’t like, I was a ghost.
“It ain’t easy living,” though as Perry Farrell sang in “Ocean Size.”
This record was the soundtrack of about six or eight months for me, if not more. Jane’s was THE band at the end of 1988 and for much of 1989 and 1990. It did get to the point where I had heard this record so much that I needed to step away from it, but hot damn if it wasn’t perfect for what I was going through at the time.
“Had a Dad” spoke volumes to me. In 1988, I didn’t have much contact with my own dad, so I felt the words deeply. I kind of meshed my own thoughts and feelings into this one when I used to listen to it, but it certainly could get my blood going.
As I mentioned, the record was kind of trampled out of me, but that wasn’t until the early 2000s. We went to see Jane’s Addiction when they headlined Coachella in 2001, I think it was, maybe 2002. It was a really bad experience for me, and I knew that night that I was headed for a divorce. I was hurt and embarrassed and part of me blamed Jane’s Addiction for a long time for that.
It’s ridiculous, I know, but traumatic events are often associated with other feelings and music evokes a lot of feelings for me. I’m glad that Nothing’s Shocking and I could get back together. I have a lot of bad memories that involve Jane’s Addiciton’s music, to be honest, but I tend to forgive the band.
“Sex is violent.”
“Ted, Just Admit It…” is another powerful song. Good stuff and it is just so huge. Jane’s Addiction was great at making these epic, anthemic jams that sounded so off the cuff and improvised, but to pull them off with such precision shows that they are not improv. They were tight as hell.
Everyone of these songs feels like an old friend or a distorted memory that is either pleasant or not so much. I know every word and every beat of the record so well. It takes me back to being 19 and ready for everything and nothing and all that was in between.
“Mountain Song” into “Idiot’s Rule” is just so good. To think they come off the huge, emotional wave that is “Summertime Rolls” is even more immense and taxing on the brain. As listen to “Summertime Rolls” now, I recall all the times that I just sort of got lost in the song only to rescued by Eric Avery’s opening bass line in “Mountain Song.”
“She says, ‘Stop, I’m a girl’ whose finger nails are made of a mother’s pearl.”
The lyrics on Nothing’s Shocking are great and totally rock and roll. The big and swing for the fences in the best way. I have to believe that the reason Jane’s Addiction has only put out four true LPs is that they made such a good record in this one that they knew they could never live up to it.
I love Ritual de lo Habitual, and I wrote about it back in January, but it pales in comparison to Nothing’s Shocking. The one after Ritual was lame. I don’t even remember what it was called.
“Mountain Song” is probably my favorite Jane’s Addiction song. I don’t think I could choose any others, and it is mostly because of the bass work in the song. It’s so simple, but good. It’s everything a good bass line should be.
I still have the vinyl of this that I bought in 1988. I would have had to have squirreled the money away, too, as I didn’t often have two nickels to rub together in those days. Such a good record…and again, I’m glad we patched things up.
I should probably also be thankful that Jane’s Addiction helped me get rid of a situation that was tearing me apart.
“Jane says, ‘I’m done with Sergio…treat’s me like a rag doll.”
Indeed.
*****
See you tomorrow.
There they go.
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