Classic or dud : Jane's Addiction

So yeah all you Navarro fans should check out the Deconstruction album. Lot to love there.

morrisp completely OTM, choosing a bassline you love over disgust at introducing a 15 year old to heroin, having a 3-day smack and sexual bender with her and your girlfriend and then making a sculpture of it to transform it into art is not a defensible position. Musically, a great song, but I am not going to listen to this skeevy motherfucker any more. He always struck me as a creep and I thought oh maybe it's just my innate contempt for that kind of muddled semi-spiritual bullshit that masques as a cover for "do whatever the fuck I want". So yeah, I was right after all these years. Goodbye asshole.

I think you might be the right audience for this, but can I tell you how much I love this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBUxxl5NnME

So yeah all you Navarro fans should check out the Deconstruction album. Lot to love there.

I've probably said it before in this thread but in some ways that Deconstruction album holds up better than Jane's for me - obviously it lacks the big ticket tunes but yep Navarro is still in his sweet spot between rock pyrotechnics and post-punk moody textural stuff - and these days I find Eric Avery's lyrics more personally resonant (less "toxic"?) than Perry's golden god self-mythologising - and def. interesting project wrt this thread in the context of a partial critical response to Jane's immediately after the event

Were there ever any boundary-pushing bands that dared put a scantily clad dancing *dude* in a cage to be objectified?

Someone post that Shamen video with Jason Statham in it

just realised how wrecked my syntax was above, but the TL;DR is that the art doesn't justify Farrell's behaviour and I'm done with Jane's, which resolves the ambivalence I've always felt.

Someone post that Shamen video with Jason Statham in it

I have to say, again and again, that this is stuff that is extremely personal for me, and a lot of it is about naming and reclaiming my own experiences of the time.

While a teenager, I absolutely had non-consensual, coercive sex that was 100% Rape. I also had consensual sex in which I was the agent and the intiator and it was 100% Not Rape, and the difference between the two experiences was not that I was 17 2/3 in one case and 18 and one day in the other.

The difference was consent, it was agency, it was whether I felt like I was in control of the experience, and that my desires and needs were being honoured.

The conversation has switched over the past few years, from "no sex is ever rape" to "all sex is rape". The latter position *ALSO* means that the desires and needs of the female (or on the "down" side of power) participants are STILL not being honoured, and are not likely to be.

When a group of people, mostly cis men, demonstrate that they do not understand what ISN'T rape, it makes me very wary that they don't have a very good understanding what IS rape.

Music often functions as a... theatre of desire. In many ways the music industry (and even moreso back in the 80s) is in the business of commodifying sex, desire, romance, longing, infatuation, and all of those other exciting emotions, and providing a place for people on the cusp of sexuality to experience and explore them. (ILM has a long history of demonstrating that it is intensely uncomfortable with female desire.) An industry that traffics in desire in this way, is entirely ripe for abuse. To combat that abuse, without simply declaring "desire" off limits (because we all know whose desire gets cracked down on first), one has to understand, beyond a 'letter of the law' approach, what is, and isn't abuse.

(The absolute epitomy of the dark side of this 'letter of the law' approach to consent versus abuse is on that other thread, about the Killers thing. "The actual girl was not raped; however deliberately convincing the only female crew member, for weeks, that her colleagues were all rapists, was just ~hazing~ - therefore no abuse has taken place." Please move beyond these letter of the law approaches. The letter of the law can be used to harm, discredit, diminish, the negative experiences of women, as easily as it can the positive.)

Now I'm gonna go have a little dance on the Shamen thread.

The band that Jane's most resembled lyrically, at the time I loved them, was the Velvet Underground. That absolute refusal to take a moral position, writing completely non-judgemental songs that were "neither for nor against, just about".

And who you choose to take that moral non-positition towards, is far more important than the act of non-position. Farrell was pretty clear that he very much did have a moral position on cops, governments, leaders. But in the face of the Reagan/Bush years of Just Say No and the War On Drugs (which was actually a war on the poor, and specifically a war on African-Americans, because no one cared if Wall Street was a blizzard of cocaine) to refuse to take a moral position, to write songs that posited... sex workers are just people; drugs can be fun or spiritual or all kinds of things; shoplifting is exciting and fun - the directionality of who gets moral blame (cops) and who doesn't (sex workers, shoplifters) can be really powerful in a way that transcends the sleaziness of the writer.

I don't think I ever, even at the height of my fandom, thought Farrell was any kind of messiah or... (role model is the wrong word here) - he was, like Lou Reed, a fucked-up, damaged individual writing songs about fucked-up, damaged people - whose damage resembled the damage me and my friends had - in a way that didn't condemn us for our damage, but allowed some people who had been quite marginalised by the Reagan-Bush moral regime, to accept and address our damage.

I totally respect people who choose to nope out on him because (in the absence of Xiola's voice), they read his behaviour as not-OK. I was never under any illusions that he was any kind of ~nice person~ - he exuded fucked-up damage, so it is not a surprise that he was sleazy or creepy, any more than - it was disappointing, but also not a surprise to discover that Lou Reed was an abusive control freak. I just really hope that people ITT understand that I am not excusing Farrell's behaviour. But this music provided a lens through which people like me could examine our own damage.

I was never a junkie, but I was certainly an addict and an alcoholic, during periods of my life. It took therapy to help me understand, that as impressionable as I was, and as irresponsible as these artists might have been - I didn't become an addict because of Lou Reed or Sonic Boom or Perry Farrell. I was *drawn* to these artists and their addict art because there was already damage to me, the kind of damage that makes people think addiction is a solution.

Their first album, they covered a Stones song and they covered a Velvets song - and I think, at the time, I was very aware of the Velvets connection, and saw them through that lens.

thanks, Branwell, great posts. I think a lot about "acceptable transgressiveness" in art but also in "lifestyles" and the obvious tensions therein. There's something different about our moment of "progressiveness" in which the advances are today less in the direction of "freedom" than in other directions, of "do no harm" but also "respect others' freedoms". But those don't necessarily go together well. as ever this is not the thread for this but I don't know what is.

it's not exactly that weird or suspicious that ppl are erring on the side of "that's pretty fucked" when we have almost nothing of xiola's side of things. partially because she's dead from the drug perry (and probably others) helped supply her from a young age

that said I would never judge anyone for finding value in whatever art they please. I still listen to brand new, and in some ways knowing what we know or could guess about his conscience actually makes their later work i daresay quite powerfully bleak

I'm not exactly rushing out to give them my $$$ though

oh lastly some of us have conclusions and attitudes that are informed by experience as well even if we don't all post about it, something to keep in mind when yer tempted to make sweeping pronouncements about those annoying cis boys :)

Not to mention that my understanding of this and other similarly sketchy situations was chiefly shaped by listening to the women I know who have experienced such things first-hand. I will also say (alongside Simon, and for the last time, I promise) that offering heroin to a 14 year-old who ended up dying from it before even reaching the end of her teens is a significant part of what makes this tale so disturbing.

Oh but she was such a free spirit. And he was so damaged, you see.

My daughter is 18.

I had a long conversation with my Mum about the times described in this thread.

To this day, she hates my then-girlfriend because she introduced me to drugs and gay sex, and she thinks that ruined my life for decades. I have no way to express to her, that being introduced to drugs and gay sex genuinely saved my life, and without those experiences and those people, I would not have survived the 80s and I would not be here today.

People can read the same situation in many different ways, depending on their position and relation to it.

Is there anything left to be gained by continuing this, or are we just at “we disagree, leave it” here?

idk is it really ILX if we don't drag this out until a valued poster ragequits

(j/k I'm happy to drop it)

Is there anything left to be gained by continuing this, or are we just at “we disagree, leave it” here?

I think the latter, with a recommendation that anyone who hasn't read Pamela Des Barres' I'm With The Band find a copy.

(N.B. I'm working on a 30th anniversary piece about Jane's and Ritual, and this discussion has given me a lot to think about, particularly since I had no idea about the various folks' ages when the record came out — not only did I not know Xiola's age, I didn't know Perry was so much older than his bandmates; he's 61!)

guys i know you all love a good thought exercise & beating a dead horse literally to death but this is straying far far into nagl

Fwiw, idk if this was referring to me but I had thought Branwell made a fair and interesting point and was thinking about how even hard legal lines don't necessarily make those questions clear-cut, morally, in terms of the point they raised. Not sure what it looked like to you. Introducing a young teenager to heroin is totally indefensible and horrifying obv and the whole story has been making me shudder over the last couple of days.

Yeah, some kids mature faster than others, but it's pretty well established that drugs and alcohol adversely affect teenage brains which are still in development, and I'm sure that adding sex to the mix makes the situation even worse. Addicts sometimes talk about that part of their brain being frozen at the point where they first experienced the euphoria that drove them to addiction. It makes sense to me that 20-somethings would be able to cope with those intense feelings and maybe draw them out through addiction while teens would be more inclined to just chase those feelings into oblivion. In this case, the issue is not about Xiola's consent or whether or not she enjoyed those 3 days, it's about her being too young to process those feelings that Perry foisted on her. And the fact that he turned her tragedy into a commodity, no matter how artfully done, is just vile and disgusting.

this thread's turn/thinking about lolla '91 and that summer/the whole thing has me feeling all kinds of fucked up
in case anyone wondered why i stopped being part of this conversation
fun fact -- 8/5/91 was when i saw that show i posted above!

Thanks for posting it upthread LL. I was watching it and soaking in the feeling of being 18-19 again.

unfortunately, i was soaking in the feeling of being 15 again too and it was very bad

(The absolute epitomy of the dark side of this 'letter of the law' approach to consent versus abuse is on that other thread, about the Killers thing. "The actual girl was not raped; however deliberately convincing the only female crew member, for weeks, that her colleagues were all rapists, was just ~hazing~ - therefore no abuse has taken place." Please move beyond these letter of the law approaches. The letter of the law can be used to harm, discredit, diminish, the negative experiences of women, as easily as it can the positive.

The band’s statement doesn’t say “therefore no abuse has taken place” — it says the guy in question was fired in 2013 for other “unacceptable” behavior, including his “treatment of others on the tour” and “a series of sexist remarks and rude comments, (which) caused the female crew member on the audio team great distress.” It’s also clear they took the new allegation very seriously; beyond getting to the bottom of it, I’m not sure what more they can do to the guy as a matter of law.

unfortunately, i was soaking in the feeling of being 15 again too and it was very bad

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Wednesday, August 5, 2020 11:38 AM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

:( sorry

so you guys ready to move on to Porno for Pyros or what

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtjRgEQFFio

Massive apologies for trying to bring this thread back to the topic of Jane's Addiction, but I've read a few pieces in the last day and one thing that keeps coming up is Perry's age relative to all the players in the band/scene.

When the band formed in 1985, Dave & Stephen were 18, Eric was 20, Perry was 26.

By the time they were in contract negotiation for songwriting credits for Nothing's Shocking, Perry was 29, Dave & Stephen were 21, Eric was 23.

In case you don't know the story, Eric left the band for 2 days because Perry's lawyer (the only member to bring one to the meeting with the label) demanded 62.5% of all songwriting credit, with the other band members getting 12.5% each. Dave Jerden (producer of Nothing's Shocking) eventually talked Avery into-rejoining the band after a few days, but it's pretty clear that the band (esp. Avery) was never the same after this.

So this recurring theme of Perry's age gap not just with his bandmates but his romantic partners (XB +9.5 years, CN +5.5 years, CC +9 years, MD +8 years, current wife ELF +16 years)... seems rather significant.

About Porno for Pyros and those songwriting credits, I was just reading this section in Whores:

MARTYN LE NOBLE: I cowrote pretty much all of the stuff, including "Pets" but never got proper credit. Perry had a very interesting structure. We went into the studio and recorded the whole record. Then Eric Greenspan, the attorney, came in and said, "We'll structure it like this. I suggest you get your own attorney." After Eric Greenspan left, Perry said, "When Dave and Eric got their own attorney, that's when I broke up Jane's Addiction." He was like, "You can get your own attorney, but if you do, this band will probably not exist."

Also, they were all smoking lots of crack at the time. Total crack record.

Huh, so that's Buck Angel in the "Cursed Female" video?

BuckAngel Entertainment
7 years ago
That is the point! It is me before I started taking testosterone. ENJOY!

well I sure have learned a lot about perry farrell over the last few days

Same, heh.

My takeaway from all of this is basically that Perry is the John Phillips of that scene. I still listen to both Jane's and the Mamas & the Papas, but I completely accept that both were driven by abusive drug-addled egomaniacs.

TALKIN BOUT THE PAYGS
THE PAYOOOOOGS

PA-PA-PA-PA-PAYOG

Removed from, like, the ominpresence of seeing it a billion times as a kid, just rewatched "Been Caught Stealing" video with adult eyes and, man, is it brilliant

Perry is totally the older dude hanging out with high school kids and the kids think he's cool until they grow up and remember... "Who was that creepy dude that was always around? Why was he hanging out with us? Weird."

Loved JA but Perry always struck me as skeezy. "Ain't no wrong now, ain't no right. Only pleasure and pain." Okay, 90's Jim Morrison.

Recently unearthed pic of Stephen Perkins & Perry Farrell cruising for burgers.

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c5c8728a9fcfa709de8e06cc7b316b66

goddamn peeyogs

PA-PA-PA-PA-PAYOG

― singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, August 5, 2020 10:38 AM (one hour ago)

https://i.imgur.com/2B7ROSB.jpg

don't really know how to weigh in on the support vs. do not support problematic artists thing

and I also realized that me "supporting" Jane's Addiction is probably listening to Nothing's Shocking like 4 more times on streaming before I die and got depressed

tbh correctly or not I don't really consider spotify streams as "material support" for artists

I'd be the most detestable hypocrite of all on this board if I didn't think listening to JA and enjoying their music will never not be fine (and at least Perry Farrell is no Jon Nödtveidt), but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be real-life consequences for ethically bankrupt behaviour. And while I myself was too young to know what the band seemingly stood for in its heyday, this revive has impelled some quality posts from all quarters and it does personally get me thinking about the mixture of progressive and toxic alt-rock attitudes that I grew up with in the 90s and early 00s.

I on the other hand have never had a bad or wrong opinion or attitude but I still found it interesting!

imagine hearing it in a laser tag place surrounded by the smell of abundant teenage sweat, cigarettes, and alcohol

I'm looking forward to checking out that video from Blossom you posted; I was at that show too but sadly have no real memory of JA's performance. I do remember them at Peabody's DownUnder if you know that club shortly after NS came out, was a much bigger fan at that point. Still have the shirt from that show in my attic in pretty great condition 'cause I was never comfortable wearing it anywhere.

Omg lol do I know you?? My webmail works, I’ll get the message! Akron.

Ha! Never expected to run into a fellow Dancin’ alum here! (That’s what it was called, right? I can’t find any evidence of its existence online.) Based on your timeline I think our age difference makes it unlikely we know each other (by ’89-’90 I’d graduated to Nine of Clubs) but our paths probably crossed. I’ll send you a message later!

Dancin’ on the planet! But we called it Photon and everyone fronted like they weren’t going but they always showed up. I used to prank the payphone. And there was a dedicated indoor smoking room. A good lol we will have!