Mingle With The Gods Mingle With Divinity: Blood Sugar Sex Magik

I remember thinking that nothing could be any better than the 1989 Chili Pepper's Album Mother's Milk. I could not have been more wrong. While George Clinton's funk was still prevalent, Blood Sugar Sex Magik brought us heavier sounds and some pretty heavy topics. The album also debuted at the height of MTV and actual videos. The silvery desert debut of Give It Away thrust us into a powerful era and gave us potentially the best album The Red Hot Chili Peppers will ever produce.

Recorded in Houdini's reportedly haunted Hollywood mansion, the non-studio produced album was full of originality and chances taken by the band. Hillel Slovak had passed not even five years earlier and John Frusciante would leave soon after this album hit full popularity. For those looking for songs like Higher Ground or Knock Me Down, there would be disappointment.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik is full of sex and drugs. Make no mistake, this album is a purge valve of hedonism, lust, drugs, regret, loss, and more sex. In the era of PMRC stickers, I was not able to get this one in at National Record Mart ... but go it a a yard sale! Way to circumvent the system. 

I quickly understood why it got the Parental Advisory sticker as there were more references than Darling Nikki that made me blush and run to turn down the cd player. 
This became my album (along with the Metallica Black album). Well not just mine. Mine and my best friend's album. So much so that we bought the shirts and also taped RHCP's on Pirate Radio - and listened to it over and over and so on. Anthony and Flea were like gods to us ... and Anthony seemingly knew his looks and fame were powerful. So much of this is evident in the album and it was also another reason why Frusciante would leave the band.


The Power Of Equality
The first few seconds are deceiving. It sounds like Anthoy is singing into a pillow and then boom ... Swing. It's quick and gets you really moving and ready for the album. It was hit hard politically as the song is very motivated by the discussion of race, bigotry, sexism, and hatred. 

If You Have To Ask
Very poetic and sing songy and with some Clockwork Orange language worked in. New vibe in the one for the Chili's and it worked. 

Breaking The Girl
Slowing it done and showing us what they are  really made of  in terms on content. It's the quintessential "our relationship was really rocky. This video though -- full of color and Anthony's Princess Leah manbuns. Low in Flea's bass but high on percussion.

Funky Monks
They're in a band. There are no monks in their band. There are no saints in the land ... no woman is able to escape their lure...because every man has certain needs.  Moving right along.  

Suck My Kiss
Fleas bass is heavy in this one ... like a big hug wrapping those strings around you. Anthony and those ladies. 

I Could Have Lied
Rumored to be about Anthony's very brief fling with Sinead O'Connor. It's a gorgeous acoutic guitar driven question about love and loss. 
Mellowship Slinky In B Major
Lots of B Major chords mixed throughout ... and a favorite of funk and James Brown. Lots of references to famous people ... including Anthony himself (Yo Swan).

The Righteous & The Wicked
Still such a relevant song about war, peace, and the state of the world. Lots of complexity in this song and has the build of Higher Ground.
Marvin Gaye my love, where did we go wrong?

Give It Away
Seriously crank this song. It's magic and alive and inspired by materialism. 
This video is the 1990's. 

Greedy little people in a sea of distress
Keep your more to receive your less
Unimpressed by material excess
Love is free love me say hell yes

Blood Sugar Sex Magik
A personal favorite. This song is lust about every aspect of a woman. The lyrics are like spoken word. I always wanted Anthony to sing this to me.  

Under The Bridge
The song that everyone knows as soon as you hear the first few notes. Such a therapeutic song for Anthony as it tells about his trials with drug addiction. 

Naked In The Rain
A fun song about loving life. 

Apache Rose Peacock
New Orleans. Women. Drag queens. Funk. Stop.

The Greeting Song
Driving song - pun intended. More women. More sex. And fun. Driving bass but not overpowering. 

My Lovely Man
Written for their guitarist Hilel Slovak. It's a letter of loss, respect, and love. 

Well I'm cryin' 

Now my lovely man 

Yes I'm cryin' 

Now and no one can 

Ever fill the 

The hole you left my man 

I'll see you later 

My lovely man if I can

In my room 

I'm all alone 

Waiting for you 

To get home

Sir Psycho Sexy
You have to love that Anthony makes fun of himself so much. Don't listen to this outloud if you've never listened to it before. Prepared to be shocked if you have delicate ears.

They're Red Hot
Ending of a completely different note. 
Fast, jazzy, and hot. Take with caffeine. 

With Honest Sounds I'll Paint Your Brain: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mother's Milk @ 30

 

A pivotal album for the Red Hot Chili Peppers...if anyone doubted the pulsating power that leapt from the blistering opener, 'Good Time Boys', it took only a few bars of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' outrageous, and brilliant, interpretation of the Stevie Wonder classic 'Higher Ground' to prove that this new lineup was onto something special. Wrapping up with the aptly titled and truly punked-out 'Punk Rock Classic' and the band's own punched-up tribute to 'Magic Johnson', Mother's Milk was everything the band had hoped for, and a little more besides.

~Amy Hanson - All Music 

Rebounding from the death of founding guitarist Hilel Slovak, Mother's Milk turned the soul searching Red Hot Chili Peppers into a phoenix, rising into music charts and MTV videos. They found themselves without a guitarist and their drummer, Jack Irons, had left, leaving bassist Flea and lead man Anthony Kiedis searching for their sound. 

After a few false starts between albums two and three, the Chili's found 18 year old John Frusciante and power house drummer Chad Smith and set forth to create the sound that would catapult them into the band we know today. The tracks were an amalgam of songs written by old members and from jam sessions. It was these sessions that built the foundation since Smith and Frusciante were so new to the band. John's addition to the band is notable in the increased melody and complexity he brings to both the guitar and lyrics.

Mother's Milk hits you hard and then tries to help you up again with the funk. The album kicks off with Good Time Boys, a funk, rap, rock welcome to the new Chili Peppers. Songs like Knock Me Down, Pretty Little Ditty, and Sexy Mexican Maid, demonstrate their new complex sound. But, it would be the covers of Jimi Hendrix's Fire and Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground that would put the Red Hot Chili Peppers into heavy rotation. 

 While the band has not had the easiest of times, this album proved the basketball and funk-loving musicians had serious potential to become mainstream rock pioneers. Just around the corner for them is superstardom with their next album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

Good Time Boys

Higher Ground

Subway to Venus

Magic Johnson

Nobody Weird Like Me

Knock Me Down

Taste the Pain

Stone Cold Bush

Fire

Pretty Little Ditty

Punk Rock Classic

Sexy Mexican Maid

Johnny Kick a Hole in the Sky

I'm a radio Joe of the biz called show
I'm a rockin' popstar with a get up and go
Rubbin' elbows with the big wigs at my sold out shows
I've been on every cover even rolling stone

Put us on MTV
All we really need
Begging on our knees
Please, please, please, please, please

Conforming to the norm straight out of the mold
Compromising each and every ounce of soul
I'm a doin' anything for the records of gold
I only want what I can hold 

-Punk Rock Classic-

Ramada Inn on 8th Avenue

Ever wonder some of the stories that went into your favorite albums? Not all albums are just written and recorded. If it were only that simple.

Aerosmith - Rocks Aerosmith's fourth studio album Rocks, could have been entirely different had Steven Tyler not lost the lyrics to it in a cab. Slash, Kurt Cobain, James Hetfield, and Nikki Sixx are just some of the artists that affirm Rocks was one of the albums that pushed them to play music. According to Steven Tyler:

Out of some of the worst times the best songs have come. I had all my ideas to the Rocks album in a manilla envelope. The whole album was finished and I left all the lyrics in a cab. I lost the whole thing, all the words to the songs. I had to go back to the Ramada Inn on 8th Avenue and sit with the headphones and bring it all back. I got about 50% of it. Can you imagine what was in that cab that went into the wastebasket?

Yes, can you imagine. Out of that we got songs like Back in the Saddle, Last Child, Nobody's Fault and Lick and a Promise. Now we have computers of course, but remember back in the 70's it was pad, paper, and lots of tape on the reels.

Paul McCartney and Wings - Band on the Run was recorded, albeit begrudgingly, in Africa. The crew endured the numerous shots needed for travel, band members quitting, poor conditions, tensions with the locals and poor recording sessions. Miraculously, after getting back into the studio in London, it would endure to become one of McCartney's best works. Band on the Run, Jet, Let Me Roll It, and one of my favorites, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five graced this third album by Wings. John Lennon had this to say to Rolling Stone Magazine on the album's release in 1973:

Band on the Run is a great album. Wings keep changing all the time. It doesn’t matter who’s playing. You can call them Wings, but it’s Paul McCartney music – and it’s good stuff.

 

Doors Morrison Hotel   It's not so much the album but the album cover. 1246 South Hope Street was the location of the Morrison Hotel - and the band snuck in to take the infamous cover shot after the owners declined permission. Roadhouse Blues, Waiting for the Sun, Peace Frog, Blue Sunday, Ship of Fools, Land Ho!, Indian Summer, and Maggie Magill are just some of the gems on this penultimate Doors album recorded with Jim Morrison. 

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik  Recorded in what was rumored to be Houdini's haunted house in 1991, this was the band's breakthrough album. It was that wonky time where grunge and heavy metal were co-existing and then out came this funkadelic, passionate, sexual album (that I had to find at a flea market because it had the parental advisory sticker). Their biggest hit off the album, Under the Bridge, almost didn't make the album. Lead singer, Anthony Kiedis wrote a poem about despondency, tension in the band, and his past heroin addiction. He assumed it didn't fit the overall vibe of the rest of the album when asked to pen a song with the lyrics.

Otis Redding - Dock of the Bay  Some artists never get to see the completion of the album. Otis Redding was working on his album Dock of the Bay in 1967. Three days before Redding died in a plane crash, he recorded (Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay. The whistling at the end of the song was a placeholder for lyrics yet to be written. The producer left it in the recoding that was the first posthumously released song to reach #1 in the US. This version is without the embarrassing overdubs of seagulls.  

Michael Hutchence - Michael Hutchence -Again, this is another posthumously released album. The circumstances surrounding Michael Hutchence leading up to his death were the brunt of all of his lyrics. Songs about love, loss, sadness, and the need for going away filled the album that would be finished by producers and Hutchence's close friend, Bono. The album is his unrequited plea for his soul.



George Michael - Faith Michael's first solo foray was only a success because of the amount of time he spent
perfecting ...every ...single...word. In a time where digital recording was not at the forefront, this was still painful. Songs were written at the microphone because if there was a word that was not seamlessly introduced to the song, it was removed and replaced. And if that replacement meant re-writing a sentence and re-recoding, then so be it.

 

Clash - London Calling Recorded in a church in North London,  the title's namesake came from when Joe strummer lived in Germany as a child. Each BBC broadcast would begin with "London Calling." The album was recorded in a dire time in England, politically, socially, economically, and musically. The songs are not straight forward punk, but a mix of reggae, jazz, and The album is their legacy, with songs such as London Calling, , Spanish Bombs, Guns of Brixton, and Train in Vain. The cover pays tribute, in a very post-punk era way, to Elvis Presley's first release.

 

Grateful Dead - Rocking the Cradle, Egypt 1978

 

We almost didn't get to hear this concert because of the poor quality. However, digital re-mastering be damned, and maybe it was the lunar eclipse on the third night of September 16th,we finally were gifted the tapes and video in 2008. The Dead only ever played in Egypt these three nights in their entire career. They played in the shadow of the Great Pyramids to those, the few who could attend. While not one of the best Dead shows ever played, it captures something (kind of like the Pizza Tapes) that we knew was out there, but just couldn't get our hands on.

Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog  This is such an important album in the history of grunge. The band was created in Tribute for Mother Love Bone singer, Andrew Wood, who had died of a drug overdose. The band, and his roommate, Chris Cornell, were all moving on but they wanted to do something. The result was a band and album named after a song lyric from the song Man of Golden Words. The band was an amalgam of Soundgarden and what would become Pearl Jam, including singer Eddie Vedder. While Hunger Strike would be the song that most remember, it was Say Hello 2 Heaven that is most poignant.

And finally - this is an apple amongst oranges, but here is the story behind a song. Written, performed, and recorded only mere days before Janis Joplin would die from an overdose, the song was inspired by a beat poet and written in Port Chester, NY and sung not even a day after it was penned at the now re-opened Capitol Theatre.

So the four of us walked to a bar about three minutes away called Vahsen’s [at 30 Broad St.]. At the table, Janis and Geraldine bonded, and all of us were getting into it. At some point, Janis sang out, “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.” Earlier, in San Francisco, Janis had heard Michael McClure’s song and it stuck with her. But she couldn’t remember the rest of it.Wall Street Journal: The Story Behind Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz. Marc Myers

You never know what history may show up at your show.

 

*Kudos to my anti-plurite co-worker and Hoaward Stern for inspiring this post.