Red Hot Chili Peppers-Blood Sugar Sex Magik

It was the fall of 1991, I had been working at Dustys Records in Grand Island. Because of various conditions, Dusty closed the doors on the Grand Island store which left only the Kearney store. I had contacted a friend of mine from college who coincidentally worked for "the competition" Record Town run by Trans World Music Corporation.  Wow! that was so long ago I'm not even sure if that was the name of the company that owned the store or not....Anyway, after I secured a job with TransWorld in Omaha, I started to pack and start my life in the "Big O". 
But, before I left, I had to stop in Kearney and say goodbye to some friends and of course...Dustys Records. I didn't know at the time that Dusty would invite me back to work 3 years later in the spring of 1994. So, I stopped in to see Dusty and make one last purchase.  I bought Tesla's Psychotic Supper and The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

For myself, my initial exposure to the Chili Peppers came in the early 80's. I remember seeing the "wild and wacky" pictures in various rock magazines. The pictures were either in some kind of wild pose or the shot of the band wearing only white tube socks....and not on their feet. The buzz on this band grew fast as a punk/funk/alternative musical force. I never paid full attention to them until 1989 when they covered Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground on the album Mother's Milk. As I got into the album more and more, I realized what a big part drummer Chad Smith was to the drive, groove and pulse of the band. As a drummer myself, I am fully aware of a drummer's personality and what it brings to a band. Tom Hanks illustrated this very well in his directorial debut That THING YOU DO. As a fan of Ringo and the Beatles, I would say that what Ringo brought to the table was a big part of the Beatles success. Led Zeppelin ceased to exist as a band after John Bonham died. AC/DC is not as good without original drummer Phil Rudd. So I am very outspoken when one refers to someone as "just another drummer". I honestly feel that Chad Smith was instrumental in the burgeoning popularity of the Chili Peppers in the late 80's/early 90's. So, I bought the Blood Sugar Sex Magik album in hopes that it would be similiar to Mother's Milk in style and energy. It actually seemed a little more subdued and a little heavy on the elements of rap. As a hard rock and classic rock lover, I was very apprehensive about any that was too "urban" and had too many hints of hip-hop. Since I was getting ready to move to Omaha, I figured I would listen to it more when I got settled in my own place. I lived with my sister Connie and her family for about a month until I found a place of my own. The heavily sexually charged album and subject was not appropriate to listen to around my 5 and 6 year old niece and nephew. So, I waited a little longer. When I looked at apartments, the apartment manager pointed out two apartments. One was right above a woman who didn't like loud noises and may have been rumored to complain a lot. The second apartment was above a tenant who had lived there 8 or 9 years and never complained. So, when I did move into my own apartment, I became very aware of my fellow tenants. So, I didn't listen to a lot things at loud volumes. I was always afraid I would offend someone by anything too heavy. That was when I began listening to more blues and groove oriented stuff. The funny thing was the tenant below me only owned one song and that was Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love.  I have some odd visions what he may have been doing while that song was on.  But, back to my memories.
Meanwhile, my brother Mike was a junior at Hastings High School and had adopted my love for music (both playing and listening to it). He was playing bass guitar at this time. I know that this album meant a lot to him. So, I continued to listen to it occasionally. I had subjected him to every music store I could ever find on family trips and every band I was into, I could at least give a unbiased listen to the stuff he was into. The truth is I was living by myself in Omaha with Cable TV for the first time. I was constantly flipping channels and listening to cable in stereo and then I would flip the audio source on my stereo to CD player and back to AUX constantly. I also had a 5 CD carousel changer. I had a hard time staying focused on one piece of media at one time.
The other thing that's significant about this CD (and a lot of CD's of this time period) is that (in 1991) artists were able to put  more songs onto the CD format than they used to on LP's and Cassettes. Blood Sugar Sex Magik has a running time of 73:49. For most of us growing up in the era of the classic rock albums eras, this was a little longer than usual. I used to buy LP's and dub them onto a cassette for portability purposes. We could fit an entire LP on one side of a 90 minute cassette because most albums clocked in around 40-45 minutes. Today's music fan usually only downloads songs(not albums) to their computer, I-phone, smartphone etc. So, a 73 minute CD probably wouldn't even hold the attention of a listener in 2010. This leads to another discussion about the current state of music and recorded music which I won't go into now.
The first single off the album was Give it Away which (the video) featured the band in silver makeup and dancing around in the desert.  The song had a big massive appeal and wide rotation on MTV(that I never really enjoyed). It was actually the first single off the album and very rap infused  But, the breakthrough song on this album was Under the Bridge.  Which was a semi-autobiographical song of lead singer-Anthony Kiedis trying to score some heroin in his younger days. This album took the band from cult underground punk/funk band to mainstream alternative. Then again, everything that was once categorized as alternative was now mainstream by the mid 90's.  Now that I think about it, a lot of categories just disappeared in the mid 90's...or maybe it was just me that didn't pay attention to categories any more.  But, the mainstream appeal of the Chili Peppers really turned me off. I have always been a bit of a non-conformist.  A big memory of instant dislike of Give it Away was on a Friday night when one of the girls that worked for me at Tape World invited me out on the town with some of her friends. She actually had a cute redhead friend that she had introduced to me but I was intimidated by her good looks. Anyway, I was the designated driver that night and these drunken girls are playing with the volume and the FM presets on my car stereo while I am trying to order drive thru food from Taco Bell. They finally come to a station they agree on begin singing out (like trendy cheerleaders or sorority girls) to the rhythmic strains of Give It Away....(shudder in disgust) To me, the Chili Peppers were societal misfits and this was a sign of things changing.  For a non-conformist like me, when the mainstream starts liking something you had known about for years,  it feels like a giant bandwagon...and I walk away from it.  The Peppers had all the mainstream airplay of the day on MTV, the Simpsons, The Grammys with Parliament All Stars, Saturday Night Live and every media outlet at this point. It became overkill. One of the most disappointing TV performances I have ever seen was when the band was on SNL and played Stone Cold Bush from Mother's Milk and then Under the Bridge for the second music segment. Guitarist John Frusciante was clearly unhappy with the newfound fame the band had. If you look back at interviews with the band. They were on top of the music world but everyone in the band was miserable. Hmmmmm too much media overkill?
History shows that guitarist Frusciante would quit the band before they would head out for the 1992 Lollapalooza festivals that summer.  He fell victim to heroin addiction. The band played Woodstock 94 with new guitarist Dave Navarro. They would record one album that would eventually be released in 1995 with guitarist Dave Navarro called One Hot Minute. Navarro wouldn't last and Frusciante would rejoin for the 1999 album Californication.  Stay tuned for a memory about that one.
As I listen to this album almost 20 years later, there are definitely some strong points to this album that still get me. I am still fond of the percussive buildup of Breaking the Girl, Funky Monks, Suck my Kiss, Sir Psycho Sexy, Apache Rose Peacock and If You Have to Ask are a series of great songs that are extremely tight and ever so funky. The band also shows its versatility by tackling a quick tribute to bluesman Robert Johnson with a quick take on his song They're Red Hot.
For me, as a drummer, what keeps me coming back to the Red Hot Chili Peppers is drummer Chad Smith. I have read articles on him, I listen to his playing and he is not from a punk background. He is out and out a fan of classic rock drumming. In my opinion, he is a combination of both Zeppelin's John Bonham and Hendrix's Mitch Mitchell.  He plays the way I want to play. He reportedly played for John Fogerty's Blue Moon Swamp recording sessions. Fogerty eventually used Kenny Aronoff's timekeeping skills for that album. He recorded the drums for Alanis Morrisette's hit album Jagged Little Pill. He has also made several albums with former Deep Purple bassist Glenn Hughes. He's even done a drum clinic video with Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice. In a list published by Modern Drummer magazine, Chad listed some of his favorite drumming albums that included Hendrix's Axis:Bold as Love, The Who's Quadrophenia, Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, the Beatles' White album and the first KISS Alive! Smith comes from a very classic rock background and adapts that to the Chilis punk funk style to give them a classic album of their own. He continues to play with the Peppers along with a 2009 supergroup featuring Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony from Van Halen and guitarist Joe Satriani called Chickenfoot. He also released an instrumental album that he considers his tribute to seventies fusion called Chad Smith's Bombastic Meatbats.

As time goes by, I enjoy this album in its entirety. I may skip by Under the Bridge and Give it Away. But, I still think it's a great album that definitely brings me memories from a very transitional time in my life.  Then again, that's why I write these blogs. It's because there is usually a memory that I can associate with the music.



building up the percussion parts!





the whole song!!