Classic or dud : Jane's Addiction

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!

Before this whole discussion kicked off, I pitched a 30th anniversary writeup on Ritual to Stereogum. It's up now, and incorporates some of what was discussed here. (It was a lot longer at first, a broader piece about how much weirder "alternative rock" was immediately pre-Nirvana, and included discussion of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, Faith No More, Primus, and Suicidal Tendencies.)

Thanks for sharing that.

“This guy’s a real moron — he doesn’t even understand fashion!”

^this is a pretty funny response to being hit by a flying Birkenstock.

That take was on the Classic Girl cd single! Also something about "women reach the age of menopause - that'll do!" that always befuddled me in the intro to their L.A. Medley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXoLYvQW7XY

Just a couple days ago on twitter, Perry mentioned getting abused by his step-mom. Can't remember if I had read about that before.

Chris, Parental guidance was all but absent from my life. I owe much of my drive to a step mother, who let me know with a constant bashing, that I was no good. So, my advice to parents today is abuse your kids as much as possible. If you’re in a bad mood; take it out on them... https://t.co/L4RSz1Ar7W

— Perry Farrell (@perryfarrell) August 18, 2020

Good piece, unperson. It makes me wish I could ‘get’ this band, even though I know I never will.

Getting drum sounds while recording Jane’s Ritual -30 years ago - I have plenty of footage of the sessions ;) pic.twitter.com/Q2czczRjyl

— Stephen Perkins (@stephenperkins) August 21, 2020

Good piece there for sure.

X post sounds like an excerpt from bonzo’s montreux!

Senors y senoras
Tenemos mas infkuceienca

Zeppelin for younger Gen Xers

I listened to Nothing’s Shocking for the first time in decades recently and it sounded truly great — I was surprised by how much i enjoyed every song, even now! Not only that but the thing that stood out was the drumming in particular. I wouldn’t have thought S Perkins was that influential for me but his playing still sounds really good.

Yesss

As a middle to young era gen xer i liked zeppelin but loved janes addiction because it was all of the pomp and bombast and great bass playing but with more punk rockness and way less slow boring blues shit.

I know they enjoyed dry ice. Got herded out of the ICA in midwinter cos they set off all the fire alarms with that stuff.
Didn't really pick up on the lps until a while later.

Have they ever remastered the cds?

i don’t ~think~ so? mr veg is a big fan so we’d have snapped them up if there were remasters to be had, i’d think. but i could be wrong.

No; there were vinyl remasters a few years ago but no CD equivalents.

Audio Fidelity (an audiophile label no longer in operation) reissued Nothing's Shocking on a 24k gold CD in 2012, remastered from the original master tapes with HDCD encoding. It's an expensive collector's item now, but supposedly it does sound really good, especially if you can decode HDCD on your player.

Is there a reason why not if like everybody else has reissued things of that stature several times over.

It seems like the main way to justify remasters is the inclusion of bonus material, and it looks like they exhausted the vaults between Kettle Whistle and the box set.

There was a vinyl box in '16 that had the two WB albums, an abridged Kettle Whistle, and a previously unreleased live album that on the whole really should have had a dad a companion CD release.

previously unreleased live album

It was the third disc in the Cabinet of Curiosities box.

Ok, so the vault is truly exhausted then.

In 2016, I cobbled together all the covers/remixes/originals not on the three LPs. It's about 70 minutes of music and pretty underwhelming

There was a vinyl box in '16 that had the two WB albums, an abridged Kettle Whistle, and a previously unreleased live album that on the whole really should have had a dad a companion CD release.

the vinyl on this sounded pretty bad imo - the recent Ritual reissue on clear vinyl was brilliant, though.