Hi folks.

Scar Tissue is an amazing book. I love it. It’s like a limb. It’s the kind of thing I dip into constantly, so in a way, really, I’m always reading it. Kudos to Anthony and to the man who actually wrote it, Larry Sloman, for coming up with something so entertaining and consistent and propulsive.

However, it has its flaws. The sex and objectification and heroin gets old pretty quickly in my opinion, and for me - somebody trying to eek out a place in the Chili Peppers world as a historian, of sorts, it can be frustratingly inaccurate in places. I don’t blame Anthony for this; he’s writing about stuff that happened twenty years previous in a haze of cocaine and endless hotel rooms - of course his timeline is going to be a bit wonky in places. So I get it.

I also understand that casual fans don’t mind when six month periods get glossed over, but the dull minutia of the day-to-day is exactly what I’m here for. It might not seem important to some, but certain dates or facts or sequences are still unknown about this great band, and I don’t want to stop until they’re all ironed out. My dream is to one day have the equivalent of The Complete Beatles Chronicle, but for the Chili Peppers.

(Mark Lewisohn is my hero, my muse, my ideal standard.)

But this is all besides the point. After reading Scar Tissue for 15 years straight now, it’s always been fun to see moments from the book as they actually happened. Like stories come to life.

Here are a couple, just for fun.

From Chapter 7:

It happened one night at the Roxy. Some people had organized a benefit for Sea Shepherd, a hard-core version of Greenpeace, and the Chili Peppers were asked to play. The theme of the night was that every band would cover a Jimi Hendrix song. There was a great bill that included Mike Watt, our friend Tree, and Fishbone, so we were psyched to play. When I showed up at the gig, Fishbone was about to go on. Earlier there had been some discussion of Jennifer singing backup with Fishbone, but I kiboshed it. “You are not going to go onstage with that guy.” Fishbone took the stage, and I made my way to the balcony. When I looked down, there was Jennifer onstage. That was not good. Now I had to make her pay for disrespecting me like that in front of my friends. At the same time, I kept my focus, because what really mattered to me was that I sing “Foxy Lady” well. Right before we were scheduled to go onstage, this young hippie girl walked backstage. She had brown hair, was really pretty, and had these huge tits poking through her tank top that couldn’t help but be in everybody’s face. A lightbulb went off in my head. I went over and whispered in her ear: “We’re going to do “Foxy Lady,” and when we get to the end of the song, when we’re freaking our onstage, I want you to come out and dance with me naked.” Two can play the same game. The hippie goddess agreed. We went out and killed “Foxy Lady.” It was like our band could have levitated. The drums were happening. Flea was digging in. Hillel was orbiting. I was giving it everything I had. I almost forgot there was supposed to be a surprise guest. We came to the end of the song, and this slinky young hippie walked onstage. She hadn’t gotten completely naked, but she was topless, and her big tits were just to-ing and fro-ing across the stage. She came up to me and started to do her hippie shimmy next to me. Norwood, the bass player from Fishbone, came out to join us, and we sandwiched this semi-naked girl. Suddenly, a figure flew onstage as if shot our of a cannon. It was Jennifer. She grabbed Norwood, who’s a big man, and tossed him aside like a rag doll. Then she grabbed the girl and literally threw her off the stage. Meanwhile, the band kept going. I realized that I was about to become the recipient of some serious pain. By then I had wound up on the floor on my back, singing the outro. And there was Jennifer, coming at me with fists and feet, punching and connecting and going for my crotch with her boots. I was trying to block the punches, all the while not missing a note. She kicked my ass till I finished the song and somehow escaped and ran off into the night.

And here’s footage of that very moment. (I should mention this is NSFW.)

One small nitpick: this wasn’t actually a Sea Shepherd benefit gig. That happened on February 5, 1987, and was one of the last shows the band did before Anthony was kicked out for a few months. This concert happened on May 26, 1986, and wasn’t actually a Chili Peppers gig at all.

(Where do I recognise the name Kim Jones from? Another section of Scar Tissue, perhaps....?)

As a side note, I’m fairly certain that this gig was the catalyst for Jack Irons returning to the RHCP, if he wasn’t already back in the band by this point. Chuck Biscuits was filling in around this time, but these few months are one long and hard to pinpoint blur.

This next one is also from Chapter Seven:

About a week after I was terminated from the band, I had a defining moment of sadness. I was talking to Bob Forest, and he told me that my ex-band had been nominated for L.A. band of the year at the first annual L.A. Weekly Music Awards. For our circle, that was similar to getting nominated for an Oscar, so it was pretty exciting. Bob asked me if I was going to go to the ceremony. I told him I wasn’t talking to the guys, so I couldn’t imagine showing up. But the awards show happened to be at the Variety Arts Theatre, a classic old venue right smack downtown. Coincidentally, I was in the same neighborhood that night, trying to hustle more drugs for my money than anyone wanted to give me. I was down to my last ten dollars, which is not a good feeling, because on a night like that, you want to be inebriated, and instead I was barely high. I remember doing a speedball with some gang dealer guys when I realized the L.A. Weekly event was going on. I stumbled into the lobby of the theater in a bit of a haze. It seemed unusually dark inside, and there was hardly anyone there, because the show was in progress. The doors that led down the aisles of the theater were open, so I leaned up against one of those doors and started scanning the audience for my old bandmates. Sure enough, they were in the front. I hadn’t been there for more than a minute when I ran into someone I knew who said, “Man, you shouldn’t be here. This is going to be really sad for you.” Just then they announced the winner of L.A. band of the year: “The Red Hot Chili Peppers.” “We won! We won the damn award!” I cheered to myself. I looked over at the guys, and they all had big grins and a pep in their step as they marched up onstage in their fancy suits and hats. Each guy got his award and made a little speech like “Thank you, L.A. Weekly. Thank you, L.A. We rock. We’ll see you next year.” Not one of them mentioned our brother Anthony who did this with us and who deserved a part of this award. It was like I had never been there those last three years. Not a fucking peep about the guy they had kicked out two weeks before. No “Rest in peace,” no “May God save his soul,” no nothing. It was a poetically tragic, bizarre, and surreal moment for me. I understood getting kicked out, but I could not understand why on earth they didn’t have the heart to give me a shout from the podium. I was too numb to feel sorry for myself; I was just trying desperately not to think about how bad I had fucked up and trying to escape any responsibility or reckoning. So I just said, “Ah, fuck them,” to myself and tried to borrow five dollars from someone in the lobby so I could go out and continue to get high.

No video this time (though the night was filmed and aired on French television) but here’s a photo of the band accepting the award, sans Anthony, courtesy of James Slovak:

Jack Irons must have felt strange to be accepting anything on this night; by that point he’d not played on a single RHCP album, only a few demos which wouldn’t be heard until 1994.

Chapter Eight now:

Then we went back to Europe to play a few festivals. We did a huge outdoor show in Finland on the same bill as the Ramones. It was a great show, one big massive orgy of eighty thousand drunken half-naked Finnish people. We rocked this enormous audience, but they weren’t there to see us, they were there to see the Ramones. After our show, we all assembled to watch the Ramones, who weren’t the most engaging fellows if they didn’t know you. They kept to themselves in the backstage area. Before they went on, they went through their entire set in the dressing room with unamplified instruments. When they went out, we huddled at the side of the stage, and someone came up with the idea of taking off our clothes and running onstage and doing a little dance in homage to the Ramones. Hillel was dead set against it, but Flea and Jack and I stripped down and skanked naked across the stage during “Blitzkrieg Bop.” Later that night, I ran into Johnny Ramone and their manager in the lobby of the hotel. Johnny bitched me out: “Who the fuck do you think you are to get on our stage during our show without your fucking clothes on? That was not cool.” “I’m sorry. We did it because we love you. We didn’t mean to interfere which your aesthetic,” I apologized. Johnny stormed away, but Joey Ramone, who’d been lingering in the shadows, came up and whispered to me, “Personally, I thought it was kind of cool,” and then walked away.

Here’s that very moment (hopefully that should link you to the 37.00 mark - if not, scroll across.)

Personally, I side with Johnny here, and I dare say Anthony would probably react the same way if this happened to him today…but what do I know.

Next up is from Chapter Twelve:

Before we began our touring, I was set to do some interviews to promote the album. Right about then, I started getting loaded again. I was holed up in my house on an absolute tear one day in September, and the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. I finally answered it, and it was Louie. “Dude, MTV is outside your house. They’re ready to shoot.” I remembered that I was supposed to do an MTV shoot at my house with the VJ Kennedy. I dragged myself downstairs. I looked sick and lifeless, and I had to answer all these questions on camera in my living room from the bubbly, sweet Kennedy. It’s been a while since you had a record, blah, blah, blah…” What a disaster.

Here’s that interview (I’m sure Anthony is thrilled this is still available). For someone in such bad shape, he’s doing decently.

Anthony mentions in Scar Tissue that he visited rehab in April 1995. Here’s how that was spun to the press, at the time:

Sweet, sweet, naivety.

Here’s one more, but not sourced from Scar Tissue. It’s a fan-submitted review of a show from October 7, 1991 on the website that used to be the gold standard for RHCP tour dates, theside.free.fr :

It was actually a benefit for a sick little girl, but also a release party. Word of it was floated by band members: in my case, Chad told my best friend at the time. The sign outside said “private party” and those in the know who could demonstrate knowledge of what was actually going on could buy tix for I think $12. The Music Machine is VERY small, I’d say <150 people. It was not extremely packed, but a good crowd. Keith Morris’ breif-lived band Buglamp opened, followed by an EXCELLENT set from X. Then RHCPs. We had advanced copies of BSSM so knew some of the songs. They played 3-4 songs and they were NOT playing well and the insider-crowd KNEW it and didn’t really react too enthusiastically. SO Anthony tossed his head up in the air and walked off stage like a fucking baby. Everyone but Flea and Chad (who were and are very cool) stayed. Anthony came back on, they turned the volume up so loud you couldn’t hear shit and a crazy mosh insued. It got really hard core. Flea busted his bass and borrowed John Doe’s. It was just crazy all night after that and I’m very glad to have been there. John F did a solo of “Sunday Morning” and that was hilarious because he couldn’t sing a note at the time.

This show was actually uploaded in full to Youtube late last year, and… well, most of that review was complete horseshit. Was a benefit for Gary Leonard, not a sick little girl, and it only gets more inaccurate from there, especially with regards to Anthony’s behaviour.

I guess our memories aren’t all that reliable.

Until next time,

H.