Classic or dud : Jane's Addiction

Interesting to hear these reminiscences about the place and importance of Jane's in youth culture at the time. I was a few years too young (9-12 from 88-91) and don't think I knew anyone who was a fan, even later on in the 90s alt-rock heyday. I was aware of them, though, and just thought of them as a metal band because MuchMusic played them on their metal show: they were a little too weird for me to really get as a preteen (although I didn't think of them as feminine at all); it was afterwards that I got into their albums and realized the creativity of what they were doing and saw their influence in so much of the alternative rock I had listened to.

It's funny, because I just went and listened to that first Janes album and found the offending track - I'm pretty sure it was Whores. They couldn't tell if Perry was a boy or a girl through the first song, but the minute he started screaming "I'm a whorrrrre, goddamn muthafucka, gimmee some morrrrre!!!" it didn't matter how heavy or gnarly the riffage was, they were like "this is f*gg*t shit, get it off!" - which, interestingly enough, was a reaction they had to the Velvets (but not necessarily the Stooges?) I could never figure out what her friends were gonna go for or not.

interesting but not surprising that "I'm a whore" caused offense but casually dropping n-bombs didn't even merit a raised eyebrow; I had heard "Mountain Song"/Nothing's Shocking first so when I went back to that album I had very strong "fuck this fucking band" reaction that lasted for about a year (basically, until I heard the second half of Ritual and thought "okay, they've clearly evolved and I don't feel like I hate myself for liking them anymore")

Were Jane's really seen as more androgynous than the glammy pop-metal bands of the late 80s? That seems a little surprising. Or did you mean compared to the heavier thrash bands?

― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Monday, August 3, 2020 10:34 AM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think definitely more than other glam hair bands...I mean they wore corsets and shit. They would make out with each other! Also Perry was p upfront about having worked as a prostitute.

Jane's seemed more androgynous than hair metalers at the time because I never got the sense that the hair guys "meant it"---like Poison was dressed that way to shock, it seemed to me, not because they felt gender fluid. But I dunno.

also Jane's lyrics gave prominence to women characters without just sexualizing them, even though the iconography of the records made it clear that sex was part of what was going on. like again side 2 of Ritual, or "Jane Says", or even "Been Caught Stealing": it's "his girl" but she's one of the gang, not just an object of attraction. I dunno this made an impression on me at the time even.

LL that video is great

Also Perry was p upfront about having worked as a prostitute.

Didn't know this was a true story.

Appreciate the context. Euler's point about lyrics is a good one.

Tbh, I only ever listened to NS/RdlH, although I listened a lot. Never heard this first album before.

Completely understand, DJP, like we've discussed this before around Christian Death. (And I can relate, because I did have the similar needle-scratch moment around GNR's use of 'f*gg*t'.) And this is part of what made that Upstate NY Sisters/PE show so fraught - that a bunch of kids who had no problem with n-words in Janes or Christian Death, in fact found those forbidden words to be *part* of the transgressive appeal - were suddenly face to face with Public Enemy, telling them that shit was extremely Not OK.

And it wasn't the word "whore" that raised the reaction - lots of metal songs had profanity and shit talk about sex workers. It was that Perry aligned himself with women, with gay sex workers, he was the titular "whore" rather than a cis male utilising a sex worker's services. That Perry did come across as genderfluid and queer - and that really *was* shocking, rather than hair metallers dressing like that "to shock" and not being shocking at all.

(I just want to make clear, that I was at that time, in 1989, in both a lesbian relationship and also in a quasi-gay relationship with a gay man who almost exclusively dated butch lesbians. 1989 was like that, OK, that was my life then. Jane's made sense to me. And the "this is music for f*gg*ts" comment was quite amusing in context, like, yes, my metal dudes, you are in a house full of gay people. What did you expect to hear, but gay music?)

Haha, you can tell I've just read Glitter Up The Dark last week. Wonder if I should start/revive a thread for that?

I think a better point of comparison among the grunge bands, was the way that people like Jane's actually opened up a space for Kurt Cobain to be a bisexual, dress-wearing, Riot Grrrl-repping dude who went on Headbangers Ball in an actual ballgown and became a superstar while doing it. Kurt was *read* as a lot more cis, albeit a pretty-boy, and known for being in a heterosexual marriage so that his bisexuality was erased, but I think Farrell did open up that space for someone like Cobain to go through?

Did Cobain have any same-sex partners? I hadn't thought there was evidence of that?

I think that's true, whether Kurt would have got there anyway is something we'll never know (I think maybe?) I was just saying the other day that there's just a lot less sex in grunge in general, let alone anything that came out of it, there's a dark seedy glamour about Jane's that no one else ever came close to. There's sex in Nirvana but it's crowded out by a lot of other stuff.

Also want to echo Ned's post, the general sense that Jane's themselves still feel like this blueprint for a future of rock that never happened and Nirvana were probably the biggest reason why it didn't, coupled with maybe the sense that Jane's had created something and simultaneously taken it as far as anyone could. Like, who else could have pulled off something like Ritual?

xp: No, it doesn't look like he did. I just went hunting for supporting evidence on that as well, because I didn't recall having heard anything. He discussed same-sex attraction though.

https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/people/2013/10/24/rediscovered-interview-reveals-kurt-cobain-thought-he-was-gay

Orientation is about attraction, and not neccessarily about 'action'? Cobain said repeatedly he was attracted to dudes, that's enough for me. Policing people's orientations and identities like that and demanding 'evidence', especially frpm the dead, is considered kinda old-fashioned these days. ::shrugs::

One problem I sometimes have with hedonism as subversion is that it so often defaults sexist and gross. So Jane's Addiction having, say, go-go dancers or strippers writhing around on stage to me is really no different than Motley Crue or whomever doing it, and bands like Soundgarden, despite poking fun at that scene with songs like "Big Dumb Sex," still defaulted macho. I've never heard anything about Cobain being anything but heterosexual, but he did seem to recognize that stuff as problematic, which is why he went to such relative lengths to feminize or undercut that macho element to Nirvana's music. (Reminds me of Elliott Smith choosing the name Elliott because "Steve" just sounded like such a jock name.) Anyway, I can totally imagine Jane's Addiction embracing the sex/drugs/rock Sunset Strip scene, to the extent that I can also easily imagine them hanging with the likes of Motley Crue for all the expected (wrong) reasons. That could be perhaps why I dismissed JA as poseurs at the time.

I think I missed the generational bus with these guys. I remember hearing 'Jane Says' and 'Been Caught Stealing' on the radio as a tween in the late 90s, and both struck me as okay singles but way too jolly and extroverted compared to Nirvana and their post-grunge imitators, whom I obviously worshipped at the time. I listened to Ritual de lo habitual a few years later after coming across a glowing retrospective review (on AMG, if memory serves) and I can't say any of it clicked with me, probably because I've never been drawn to the 'transgressive sexiness' axis of post-1970s rock. Anyway, I'm slightly baffled by the recurrent use of 'dark' to describe their sound upthread.

My never-written senior dissertation on how the way for the grunge explosion was paved by Jane's, The Pixies, and Living Colour would have spent some time on the presentation link between the pansexual hedonism of Jane's and Cobain's "fuck it, I am wearing a dress today" insouciance.

the presentation link between the pansexual hedonism of Jane's and Cobain's "fuck it, I am wearing a dress today" insouciance

I hope this dissertation would also have included a mention of Living Colour releasing a single with the chorus "I ain't no glamour boy - I'm fierce!"

Orientation is about attraction, and not neccessarily about 'action'? Cobain said repeatedly he was attracted to dudes, that's enough for me. Policing people's orientations and identities like that and demanding 'evidence', especially frpm the dead, is considered kinda old-fashioned these days. ::shrugs::

― Branwell with an N, Monday, August 3, 2020 4:24 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Agreed. To be clear, I was simply responding to what Sund4r was asking about.

I've never heard anything about Cobain being anything but heterosexual, but he did seem to recognize that stuff as problematic, which is why he went to such relative lengths to feminize or undercut that macho element to Nirvana's music.

This is mostly what I get from the Advocate piece upthread.

Although I never experimented with it, I had a gay friend, and then my mother wouldn’t allow me to be friends with him anymore, because she’s homophobic. It was real devastating because finally I found a male friend who I actually hugged and was affectionate too, and we talked about a lot of things. I couldn’t hang out with him anymore...

I've always wanted male friends that I could be real intimate with and talk about important things with and be as affectionate with that person as I would be with a girl. Throughout my life, I've always been really close with girls and made friends with girls. And I've always been a really sickly, feminine person anyhow, so I thought I was gay for a while because I didn't find any of the girls in my high school attractive at all. They had really awful haircuts and fucked-up attitudes. So I thought I would try to be gay for a while, but I'm just more sexually attracted to women

Josh's take is a weird one on the LA underground scene which was still very SST-adjacent, eg Perry (as singer of PSI-COM) had opened up for Sonic Youth at Gila Monster Jamboree in what is the Mojave Desert (with The Meat Puppets & Redd Kross), had been featured on an early SubPop zine/compilation cassette, etc.

Early Jane's was less a part of the Sunset scene (Lingerie excepting) and more a part of the downtown scene (Al's Bar, HK Cafe, Scream) which was a world away from that universe. Curious if Underrated Aerosmith or Jay Babcock are lurking this thread as I believe they may have been drifting adjacent to this crowd (and also have sharper memories than I).

Living Colour coded as pansexual to me already from the first album, with "Glamour Boys" and the Mick Jagger connection (who in the late 80s was (still?) considered pretty sexually fluid). Even in the 80s all the colo(u)r they used signified...something. The second album continued with that, "Under Cover of Darkness" especially: "I like to touch your skin even if it is a sin". And then the third album had "Bi", which in retrospect sounds a bit judgmental to me but still raised the subject.

My take is only my take, and as often is the case, not necessarily accurate, esp. re: the LA scene. But at the time that's just the vibe I got from Jane's Addiction every time I tried to listen to them. Like I said, the only people I knew who listened to them at their peak were bro-types, and I never thought of the band as any different than I thought of the Chili Peppers. Just shallow party-down (on your pussy) dudes that wore socks on their dicks, or the (nothing's) shocking equivalent. Just seeing Dave Navarro end up the stripper-dating where's-my-shirt shredder pretty metal guy and Perry become the corporate mascot of Lollapalooza Inc. sort of bore that out in my mind. Again, just imo. I absolutely recognize that this band meant a lot to a lot of people. One of my best friends regales me with "Perry" stories all the time, and I more or less tell him the same thing, that I must have just been on a totally different wavelength.

(I should say I always loved the JA rhythm section. I played drums and loved watching Perkins play.)

I don’t think Janes had strippers/go-go dancers in their videos(?) I’m not a fan myself, but I went to h.s. from the Sunset Strip, and the goth-adjacent kids who were into Janes definitely wouldn’t have touched Motley Crue with, er, a 10-ft. pole.

I was just watching LL's video upthread, and there are definitely two bikini clad women writhing and simulating various sexual acts. A very Crue thing to do.

It was part of their live show, I think?

2011 Jane's clip: https://youtu.be/4qmrM-CSUr8

Porno for Pyros in 93: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osSOEH8EVZ4

NSFW obv
xp

(*far from the Sunset Strip)

Yeah, but their MTB videos back in the day? I’m not arguing they don’t have that gross machismo quality, I’m just not sure it was so detectable back when those first two albums were out.

*MTV (lol)

I didn’t realize it at the time but I was responding to their rhythm section too, when I liked them as a teen. They were HEAVY but not (I thought) quite as gross or scary/unapproachable as other heavy bands whose music I could access for one penny through Columbia House. Lol. After that summer idk if I ever regularly listened to them again. Certainly haven’t in probably 15-20 yrs?

Also this isn’t related to Lolla but the teen dance club I went to 89-91 used to play “Mountain Song” and all I remember was how loud it was and the pause before “coming down the mountaaaaain” everyone always recognized the song right away, it was one song that always brought the boys off the sidelines and girls could dance without being stared at/appraised.

My never-written senior dissertation on how the way for the grunge explosion was paved by Jane's, The Pixies, and Living Colour would have spent some time on the presentation link between the pansexual hedonism of Jane's and Cobain's "fuck it, I am wearing a dress today" insouciance.

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Monday, August 3, 2020 12:55 PM (fifty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Don't forget Faith No More!

Roddy: "To me, throughout our career, the representation of the band and the way I've been portrayed everything has been so homosexual every we've ever done. I've portrayed some absolute blatant, stereotyped homosexual. I've been the boy in bondage, the sado masochistic cop, the homo-cowboy. I mean. I've been so blatant about it - it just blows me away that people don't pick up on something like that. Y'know. what am I supposed to do? Hit people over the head with this? That hurts, right? It hurts your head and it's an insult to people's intelligence."

Certainly by "Angel Dust" the band was really leaning into it. You might be the guy to ask, do you think Patton as lyricist was coming to it on his own, or do you think he was influenced by being in John Zorn's orbit?

I'm speaking as a FNM non-fan here, but I think Patton's role in that band is way overstated. He was what, their third singer? Fourth? The music for The Real Thing was done when he came on board, and other bandmembers co-wrote lyrics to a third of the songs on Angel Dust.

I'll just say that, as a young kid, I did not recognize any sort of gay signifiers in dress. It did not occur to me that any rock stars wearing bridal veils and all of my grandmother's jewelry at once was anything other than trying to look weird and be creative.

Same tbh.

Pom, I can see "Been Caught Stealing" as jolly and extroverted but that seems like a bit of a stretch for "Jane Says".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kAIMlISHhU&list=RD1kAIMlISHhU&start_radio=1

I don't know how to qualify something like "darkness," and I have no idea how it scans now but at the time things like Perry's crucifixion seizure @ 3:22 was alluringly terrifying to me.

As a kid I had listened to all kinds of (mostly older) music on acid, but this was the first contemporary, heavy music I'd tripped to and there was something so powerful and alien and cutting to it...I mean it couldn't have been more far afield from the Chili Peppers or Motley Crue or whatever.

The notion of being somehow "scared" by music wasn't something I had really experienced before, maybe outside as a little kid projecting things onto the Beatles or Stones, and despite listening to a fair amount of goth and metal, the tropes never worked on me. But "Ted, Just Admit It," to me, at the time...yikes.

Because of the lyrics? I had no idea what they meant at the time. The song itself just pleasantly chugs away as far as I can remember – it's been a while, however.

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kAIMlISHhU

Yeah, lyrics and delivery. It's a two-chord chug otherwise.xp

I always wondered if Mascis is referring to this Mountain Song^ in Dinosaur's "Quicksand" cover

"Mountain Song" was the one that freaked me out when I was 9 in 1988. It was kind of funny coming back to it in my early 20s and realizing it sounded like Led Zeppelin.

imagine hearing it in a laser tag place surrounded by the smell of abundant teenage sweat, cigarettes, and alcohol
that's what it was like at the teen dance club

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rFB0bvmuq0

In high school I was used to only hearing Jane’s in certain specific places with very specific people, rarely if ever out in the wild

My mind was blown when I went to my first organized party at university (1994) & the DJ played “Been Caught Stealing” to a crowded room of like 200 people and a ton of people ran out onto the dance floor & starting singing & shouting & dancing

VERY exciting. Like “oh wow yes I am in the right place & these are def my people”

bought Nothing's shocking the week it came out, strongly disliked it and never liked anything those guys did, except for "been caught Stealing."

roundabout this time 29 years ago, I drove from NYC with a buddy to wherever Lolla was outside of DC. I didn't like NIN (still don't), Siouxie (do now) and Jane's, liked all of the other acts on the bill (big stan for Ice, Bholes and LC), but the whole thing was a blast, particularly Jane's. At that time, they did have dancing ladies onstage, and there is no doubt that 30 years ago, this coded more as "let's be free, groovy and sexual," not "these naked boobies are for your male delectation," and it was considered to be utterly, contemptuously separate from Crue/GnR/Sunset Strip.

Yet there were significant factions within the immediate pre-Nevermind milieu. I remember reading a tour report depicting Gibby and Paul fucking with or merely mocking Steve Severin specifically, underlining how ostensibly red blooded indie rock americans would not think much of effete englishmen who had enjoyed many years of major label support.
'

Coming back to Sund4r on Kurt Cobain, I went and looked it up in Glitter Up The Dark because I was pretty sure that the author of that book had referenced other interviews, including

Cobain, for his part, never objected to (Courtney) Love's gender transgressions - they complemented his own. Her position as a woman seemed incidental to their marriage. "I'm just happier than I've ever been. I finally found someone that I am totally compatible with," he told Rolling Stone. "It doesn't matter whether she's male, female, or hermaphrodite or a donkey. We're compatible."

Which, as the author rather snidely points out, is pretty much the dictionary definintion of pansexual, or person-oriented sexuality, to say you'd still be married to your wife if she were a man. The author, Geffen, is pretty overt about their agenda, in terms of this is a book on the influence of trans, nonbinary and gender transgressing people on the history of 20th Century American popular music. So they are reading into a lot of things - Kurt's wearing a dress on Headbanger's Ball, holding hands with his bassist and declaring him his 'prom date' - which, I dunno. For a lot of people, that would look like taking the piss out of homosexuality or queerness, but I watched the video again after reading the book, and he is doing it in a way that makes it clear, he is 100% positioning himself on the side of queerness. Like, yes, there is an edge of transgressive 'wind up the metalheads' - but it is also very much an expression of his own femininity. That doing that in 1992 - christ, it was still the Reagan/Bush era, the AIDS crisis was still fresh? Homophobia was... raw. But there is a *LOT* to read into. Not to mention, as this book also gets into, he went further than Jane's (who get only a passing mention) in terms of doing lyrical drag, not just writing songs about women, but writing songs from the position of female narrators.

It's funny, because I was never a Nirvana fan - always far preferred Hole - but their reading of Cobain in this book, just really clicked on an "ah, now I get it" level.

Also, I just always had an instinctive recoil reaction to RHCP, even before they crossed over - there was just something so absolutely "NOPE" about them on a fundamental level. There was very definitely a point where Jane's and RHCP started to blur and overlap and that was the point where I noped out on the band and never looked back. To look back at those first three albums is really to look back at who I was at the point they came out. Which is a part of my own life I very much burried for many years.