60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Been Caught Stealing”—Jane’s Addiction

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Rob brings his own bass to the party as he looks back at Jane’s Addiction’s “Been Caught Stealing,” along with some of his favorite basslines in rock music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Karina Longworth Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up guys, Rachel Lindsay here, and I am teaming up with your favorite Ringer podcasters to deliver the Bravo drama and news that you've been craving on morally corrupt. It's the show about all things Bravo, from the housewise to summer house and everything in between. We'll be mentioning it all every week. Check it out on Spotify and the ringer.com. So I get a base, right? An electric base. A used silver G&L. climax bass. Here it is. Yeah, I am holding this base right now, and the base is plugged into a much heavier than I remember at amplifier sitting behind me right now. This is happening. Turns out my uncle Roger knows a guy in Western Pennsylvania mining country, and this guy's got, not a shed,

but like a dinky little cottage of a music store nestled into this lovely Pennsylvania hillside, this bucolic and mystical tableau. Like, picture the beginning of the Hobbit. Picture Bilbo's house, but instead of being full of Hobbit shit or whatever, now inside it looks like a Sam Ash. And I walk into this magical cottage as a sucky, sullen, unremarkable, undemonstrative, largely unloved post-teenage dufous. And I walk out of this cottage as very much still that guy, but now I've got an electric

base. Now I can do this. That's not me. Of course, that's the actual song. First baseline I thought of just now ever clears everything to everyone. I decided to use the first baseline that popped into my head just now, no matter what. And I am satisfied. What did I want to play?

This is 1997, I think. What did I play? What did I try to play? Cannonball by the breeders, of course. I had a big morphine phase. in high school, the band Morphine, Boston, jazz adjacent, cool on a level I could scarcely comprehend morphine rules. Mark Sandman, rest in peace. I have no doubt that I desecrated me some morphine. That song's called Buena. Morphine are incredible. My first garage band right out of high school,

we were a punky, poppy, rocky sort of deal. We called ourselves dimmer, like the light switch. not my choice. I voted for Amish quilts or arm the homeless. Either of those, but no, we went with Dimmer. One day in the drummer's basement, Dimmer briefly contemplated attempting the tool song Hooker with a penis, presumably just so I could desecrate this. But so we just put in the tool CD in the drummer's stereo and we all stood there with our instruments hanging limply in our hands for like five minutes listening to all of Hooker with a penis, which to refresh your memory ends like this. And when the song's over, our drummer, Mike, was just like, yeah, no, we're not doing that. You got to be kidding me. I would physically die. And everyone else was like, yeah,

forget it. Armed the homeless, I believe, was scrawled on one of Tom Morello's guitars. Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine. After practice, his dimmer used to go to Denny's, like a Denny's post-game hang, just for the mild sublime. of ordering a moons over my hammy. And one day there was a frame photo of Amish quilts hanging above our table and it said Amish quilts above the photo.

That's where Amish quilts came from. Either of those would have been a better band name. My second band, freshman year of college, was a ska band that I will never tire of informing people was named Scantily Plaid, just a marvelous band name, scantily with a K, naturally. This was not my idea. But nonetheless, the third wave ska

craze that electrified sullen teenagers roundabouts 1997 even in the sleepy bucolic Midwest third wave scah imbued sullen teenagers nationwide with an irrational exuberance and an unearned confidence

and an unsupported ambition so during Christmas break or whatever there's me in my bedroom stumbling through gold fingers here in your bedroom unsuccessful less unsuccessful, though not necessarily less unbearable.

There's me back in my dorm room, kicking back alone on a Friday night at Ohio University, a notorious party school, alone and stone-cold sober, stumbling through beer by real big fish. Okay, so, but in this especially undemonstrative and unloved era of my life, I had come to regard my bass guitar as my only shot at becoming lovable, or at least tolerable. My silver G&L climax was my most loyal companion and confidant. Scantily played out at a song called Rob's song. I'm Rob. I wrote it, the broad stroce of it.

The chorus to Rob's song was, Gotta make you understand the way I feel about you. How did I never get famous? How have I not yet received the Pulitzer Prize for lyricism? But so the baseline to Rob's song, I swear that I rip this off in its entirety from some other mid-tier national ska band whose name totally escapes me that played a show at Ohio University, but nobody else remembered it. So maybe this is all me. It was like, that's okay, right? That just happened.

I can't skank the dance, the ska, the ska, a social. I am not coordinated enough to skank, but you can skank to that, right? I am God's humble instrument. Scantily Plaid broke up and reformed without me as an emo band. I will never get tired of telling people that either. My third band was called AI, artificial intelligence. We self-identified as a pseudo-intellectual space rock trio. Our biggest show, we opened for the band Blessed Union of Souls at Wittenberg University, another Ohio college. Blessed spelled B-L-E-S-S-I-D from Cincinnati. They had a minor hit with a goopy piano ballad called I Believe. They had another minor hit with a bare naked lady's ass half-wrapped novelty tune called Hey Leonardo parentheses, she likes me for me, those guys. Nice guys.

As the opening band, we got like a cheap deli tray in the green room backstage and I spent most of the headlining set whipping cold cuts. at the overhead lights. I believe our drummer, my good buddy Dan, referred to Blessed Union of Souls in print in the Wittenberg student newspaper.

He called them the Goodwill Pants Department. Good shit. At one AI show at the end of one of our pseudo-intellectual space rock originals, we tacked on a little bit

of karma please by Radiohead. And the front man was like, take it, Rob. And my friends, I say to you now, I fucking took it. But so somewhere in this era, I write the second baseline that I feel compelled to play now on a podcast for total strangers 20 plus years later.

I have no explanation for this. I just woke up yesterday and decided to do this. And when AI flames out and I briefly join another poppy, rocky quasi-revenge band called the Super Americans named after the gas station, I write a song called Ascension Day, which was a metaphor. And the baseline is like, that's awesome. Do they give out Pulitzer prizes for bass lines? I bought a new amp chord just to play that for you. Who is in charge of this show? I wrote the lyrics too. I think the chorus was like,

On Ascension Day, I will fall to earth as something floats away. I forget what? Deception? Perception? Pretension? Not pretension. In the back of my head,

I know I am hardcore ripping off somebody with this baseline, but in the moment I don't know who. All I know is that this humble, serviceable little baseline that I will not play for you again basically plays in a loop in my head for a couple years of my wayward post-adolescence.

It's my best case scenario, artistic or even public statement in any language in any medium. It's humble, but it's mine. And then one day I realize it's not mine. I realize who I'd have been hardcore ripping off. Turns out it was the Scottish, post-rock band Maguai.

I was ripping off several songs by these Scottish post-rock band Maguire, but this song in particular, which is called Tracy, no E in Tracy, from their 1997 debut Young Team. If you don't know what post-rock is, God bless you. You are absolutely better off. I mean that sincerely, I love post-rock. I still listen to it all the time. That's not the point. Can I confess to you poor people who do know what post-rock is that I might prefer the Kidloco

remix of Tracy. Sure I can't. There's just an overpowering and exquisite radness to the Tracy remix. You know that viral story from 2020 where a teenager from North Carolina who did not speak the Scots language posted 20,000 incorrect entries to Scott's Wikipedia and was accused in essence of trying to destroy the Scots language because all of his entries were like, a village is a clustered human settlement or community larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town where a population range in fray a few hundred to a few thousand sometimes tens of thousands no one is in charge of this show the tracy remix is that rad and beautiful who did i want to be when i grew up in my late teens and early 20s when ideally i should have grown up already who did i wish to emulate who was the single

greatest and most fulfilled human walking the earth. You know who it was? You know who I eventually decided was the single raddest dude alive? Magwise bassist. His name is Dominic Acheson, and he gets to play stuff like this for a living. This is the song Helicon 1 from the compilation 10 Rapid, also from 1997, despite much of Magwise music being beautiful and mystical and so forth. These guys are semi-famous for selling t-shirts that said blur our shite blur colon are shite the colon might be a scottish cultural thing go look that up on wikipedia that's blur as in the polarizing brit pop band of course in 1999 mogwise guitarist steward braithwaite told the enemy i will not say this in a scottish accent he said we decided to proclaim our dislike of one of the weakest bands on the planet

by putting out these shirts. We sold out in one day, and super furry animals, Welsh band, they're great. And pavement have put in an order for more. The thing about the shirt is it's like a dictionary definition. Blur are shite.

It's factual. And if there's any legal problems about it, I'll go to court as someone who has studied music so I can prove they are shite. End quote. Anyway, eventually Helicon 1. gets around to sounding like this.

Maguire bassist Dominic Aitchison has spent his whole adult life playing bass lines like this in studios and on prominent stages around the world with veritable oceans of exquisite melancholy and ferocious catharsis roiling about him. Nothing too difficult or ostentatious about his playing just song after song, album after album, a pure, uncut, radiant, choruscating,

ethereal, cinematic grandiosity, B, blah, blah, blah, blah. Dominic Acheson had it all figured out by 1997. I wanted to be him when I grew up. I still want to be him, if we're being honest with ourselves. This is the first song on Young Team. It's called, yes, exclamation point,

I am a long way from home. We better skip right to the cathartic part. I think I was always too respectful and or fearful to even attempt to play Maguai songs myself, and I personally no longer have any musical aspirations whatsoever. Basically, you just heard me play bass for the first time in like 20 years. I'm sorry, I don't know why I did that.

I can't even expense the amp chord. Spotify is a whole separate confusing form for expensing equipment. But to this day, I retain an adoration, an overwhelming spiritual gravitation toward Maguire that still feels more intense and profound than my attraction to almost any music, by anybody. Maguire's best album is Mr. Beast from 2006. Their best song is either friend of the night off that record or Christmas steps from their 1999 album. Come on Die Young. My love for Maguire feels elemental to me. It's an instinctive, almost feral reaction, all the more precious to me because I almost never react like that. No other band hits me as hard

and in exactly the same way as Maguire. For that reason, it had never occurred to me. me that Dominic and Stuart and their buddies might have had their own influences, that they came from somewhere besides Scotland, that they sounded like other bands, that I could trace that ethereal cinematic grandiosity back a decade or two to somebody else. And then I went to Lollapalooza 2003. The last year Lollapalooza successfully toured before I just stuck to Chicago. I went to see Lala Palooza, 2003 at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. That day I was most excited to see, in no particular order, the Donnas, Caven, the Kings of Leon, a Perfect Circle, audio slave, the Mooney Suzuki, and Incubis. I hasten to remind you that it was 2003. But sure,

I stuck around for the headliner, and the headliner rewarded me with this. The song is called summertime rolls R-O-L-L-S. The band is called Jane's Addiction. The baseline unfurls slowly. My feral reaction to this baseline was, of course, instantaneous.

Summertime Roles is on the first Jane's Addiction Studio album. Nothing shocking from 1988. I'm hearing this song for the first time live 15 years later in 2003. This is early reunion era, Jane's Addiction. Eric Avery played bass on the classic

Jane's Addiction Records, but he's long gone. Chris Cheney is Jane's Addiction's bassist now, and Chris is the guy I'm gaping at in this moment as he plays the utterly stupendous baseline to summertime rolls. In my memory, Chris is sitting on his amplifier,

sitting high up with his feet swinging in the air as he plays the stupendous baseline. That's true. That's a real memory. I am tempted to tell you he was barefoot. that is bare feet were swinging, which added to the summertime grandeur of it all and intensified my own personal catharsis,

but I could be making that up the barefoot thing. I could be embellishing for cathartic purposes. I am likewise tempted to add a garish chemical sunset to this scene. I enjoy adding sunsets to my memories because maybe Jane's Addiction were playing at sunset, and that would look pretty, right? A gorgeous, slightly unreal sunset as Jane's Addiction played the Sunset.

played the song's summertime roles in the summer of 2003 at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. The earned audacity of those names, Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View. When I first moved from Ohio to the Bay Area that year in 2003, I was blown away by California. I couldn't believe all the vistas. You're driving on the highway and you can pull off at any time and there's another vista. people taking pictures of the fucking vistas. A landscape just lousy with vistas. No offense to Ohio, but we ain't got so many vistas.

Anyway, summertime rolls made me feel the way California as a whole made me feel. Overwhelmed and overjoyed. And this is a band, Jane's Addiction, that I had heard plenty of and read plenty about, but I never thought too hard about them. or felt them too deeply as of 2003. As a 10-year-old kid, when nothing shocking came out in 88, they were just slightly too old for me and too scary for me, too outre. And if I'm honest, Jane's addiction has always been that way for me,

more respected than beloved. I won't oversell it. I won't tell you, oh, I wish I'd gotten into them earlier. But it's rad to get into them now, pretty much right now, and reflect on my respectful but intimidated sense of the, the band back then. And most likely, my first sustained and concrete impression of Jane's Addiction was this. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 64th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s. And this week, we're talking about been caught stealing by the Los Angeles rock band Jane's

Addiction. From their second studio album, Ritual Daylo Habitual, released in 1990. I heard this song for the first time as a dangerously impressionable 12-year-old. Like virtually all music from this era, I heard this song for the first time on the radio, on what was not yet formally described as alt-rock radio. And right away, we got to talk about those first 10 seconds, right? The barking, that's Jane's Addiction, Frontman, Perry Farrell's actual dog. The jaunty little guitar riff, that's Dave Navarro on guitar.

The handclaps, I don't know who did the handclaps. the minimalist and lushe Eric Avery baseline that you'd better believe I will be describing an exhaustive detail very soon. Quite an eventful first 10 seconds. Wouldn't you agree? I've watched 10-hour seasons of television where less stuff happens, where less character development occurs than in the first 10 seconds of been caught stealing. Should we play that again? Can we play that again? Probably.

I listened to 6,600 hours of Alt Rock Radio in the first six years of the 1990s before I went to college. That is not a joke number, 6600. I did math to arrive at that number. Six calendar years is 2,190 days. I listen to three hours of Alt Rock Radio a day on average. Three times 2,190 is close to 6600. I rounded up. 6,600 is a little funny.

I listened to a ton of alt rock radio in the first half of the 90s is my point. The 90s, back when, for the most part, you did not have control over the song you were listening to. I don't want to talk about that anymore, but it's true. Whatever song your favorite radio station was playing, or whatever song, whatever video, MTV was playing, that was the song you were listening to and you liked it. or at least you didn't know any better. As a consequence of listening to 6,600 hours of alt rock radio, I have a full taxonomy in my head to this day of the first 10 seconds of 50,000 alternative rock saws.

That one is a joke number, but it's an accurate joke number. 50,000. We're not talking baselines. That's a whole separate thing. The first 10 seconds of 50,000 different songs because the song playing on the radio at any given moment had a profound effect on my mood, my sullen teenage mood at that precise moment. I'm listening to the radio and the song ends and I lean forward,

maybe not physically but consciously lean forward in anticipation of what the next song will be. I am hoping that the next song will be good. I am hoping that I already know it and like it. There are three to five songs at any given moment that I especially want to hear in this specific moment, and sometimes the song that starts playing is one of those songs, but most of the time it is not. And so, for the first 10 seconds that the new song on the radio is playing, my sullen teenage mood adjusts to this new circumstance. Am I happy with a new song? Am I disappointed? Am I confused? Am I enraged? It's been a shit. Fifty thousand alt-rock radio

saws. Fifty thousand ten-second introductions. Fifty thousand distinct moods bubbling in the putrid cauldron of my skull swirling amid the flatulent miasma that was sullen teenage Rob's consciousness in reaction to the first 10 seconds of 50,000 all rock radio songs. Let's revisit a few more, shall we? Once again, I decided to use the very first song that popped into my head just now, no matter what, and look out. Runaway Train by Soul Asylum. Absolutely. Loved this album.

Loved the Soul Asylum song Hom Sick. I'm homesick for a home I've never had. You know who else loved the song Homestick? Winona Ryder, who dated the guy from Soul Asylum? him. I feel bad for all those missing children from the video, though. Hit me again. In the meantime, by Spacehog.

Bonus points of the song takes forever to get going, right? Even on the radio. Ten seconds for the baseline to come in. Rad baseline. Almost 30 seconds for the guitar riff to come in. Rad guitar riff. Almost 60 seconds for the vocals to start.

The concept of swag, as it is currently understood, did not exist in the 90s. but Spacehog had tons of swag. The guy from Spacehog was married to live Tyler for a while. Good for him. Hit me again. It's been one week's you looked at me.

I feel terrible. I've taken two random shots at Bare Naked Ladies in this thing so far, when the truth is I thought this song was pretty funny when I was 17. That's on me. That's on me for making fun of them. Not for liking this song. Okay, sorry. Hit me again.

Tracy Bonham. Mother, Mother. I stumbled across this song again last week and had a truly excellent time. We got to play the chorus. Platonic ideal of a quiet verse, loud chorus situation here. Just an outstanding chorus. Low-key funniest song of the decade. That's a great song. The immediate post-Alanus moment was quite a moment. Okay, one more. Sorry, this one's for me. This is the beginning of the song, Work for Food. by a power pop band called Dramarama. Anything, anything is a way more famous drama-rama song,

but I heard this song, Work for Food, once very late at night on alt rock radio, and I became obsessed with it. And I spent months, plural, hoping to hear it on the radio again so I could tape it off the radio. And I called the radio station to request it like a dozen times,

the 90s, until the DJ finally played it again, after telling me on the phone, boy, you're persistent, or words to that effect. Words to the effect of, please don't fucking call me anymore, if we're being honest. Yes, eventually, that DJ took pity on me and played my song. But most of the time, he hung up on me and he played this instead. And of course, I was not opposed. Jane says by Jane's addiction. In the early 90s, in the robust prime of the alt-rock radio era, I did not entirely

grasp the importance of Jane's Addiction to the very existence of the All-Rock Radio era. I was too busy being just slightly afraid of this band. Jane's Addiction formed in 1985 amidst the myriad vistas of Los Angeles, California. Classic lineup, your drummer is Stephen Perkins. Your bassist is the great Eric Avery. Your guitarist, a shining example of the Live Moss mentality, is Dave Navarro and your frontman is Perry Farrell. I do not in general subscribe to the you had to be there philosophy of rock and roll history where a band's true appeal is fundamentally unknowable

if you weren't there. If you weren't a young person living in the band's hometown at the precise moment the band blew up. I've spent like 48 hours total in Seattle in my life and that was as an adult and pretty much the only restaurant in Seattle I've ever eaten in was a Jimmy John. downtown, but I've listened to 200,000 hours of rock music from Seattle in my life. That's a real number. And I get Seattle. Absolutely. I know Seattle. Trust me. Nobody needs that much context, really. I got no idea where Tracy Bonham is from. It's Boston. I just looked it up. It's Boston. That totally makes sense. But the appeal of Mother Mother was immediately apparent to me all the same. But I do suspect that the L.A. of it all, the mid-80s L.A. of it all means more to the Jane's Addiction legacy

than usual with these sorts of things. This band meant something very different to a kid in mid-90s, Ohio than it meant to a kid in mid-80s Los Angeles. Okay, so mid-80s L.A., Black Flagg, X, the Go-Go's, the Minutemen, De Boone, rest in peace, Christian Death, the Dream Syndicate, Fishbone, Motley Crew, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Addiction's first album, technically, is a live album called Jane's Addiction that came out in 1987. For your reference, here's what the Red Hot Chili Peppers sounded like in 1987. That's the song, Love Trilogy from the Uplift Mofo Party Plan. That part's the third part of the trilogy. Listen, I took very detailed notes during my deep dive into the Red Hot Chili

Peppers discography, and my love is my dick in my hand as the general tenor of the notes I took. Who is the bigger hornball? The famous hornball rock band or the mild-mannered civilian guy cherry-picking the hornballist, the hornballerist, the horn-balliest lines from the hornball rock band's catalog. Think it over. Anyways, for your reference, here's what Jane's Addiction sounded like in 1987. That song's called Hors. What are you going to do? Perry Bernstein was born in Queens in 1959.

His family moved to Miami when he was in 1887. kid. There's a great spin magazine oral history cover story on James Addiction from 2003, their big reunion year, where one of Perry's friends describes Perry's father as this Jewish mobster guy. Perry himself says of his father, he was one of those guys walking around Miami Beach in the 70s with a Fila headband and a bikini bathing suit with gold around his neck. When Perry was a little kid, his mother took her own life. At 17, he ran a away to California. Quote, with a surfboard, some art supplies, an ounce of weed, and one phone number. Whose phone number? I wonder. He lives in a van on the beach. He gets a gig impersonating

David Bowie, Mick Jagger, and Frank Sinatra at a club in Newport Beach. He sings for a goth band called SciCom. They flame out. He changes his name to Perry Farrell, which is a play on the word peripheral. Perry Perry Farrell. He meets Eric Avery. who's already got a ton of rad bass lines. He meets drummer Stephen Perkins and hot shot guitarist Dave Navarro, who'd both been playing in a metal band called Disaster. D-I-Z-A-S-T-R-E. Write that band name down and just look at it for a while.

Would you? D-I-Z-A-S-T-R-E. Drop it in Microsoft Word and put it in different fonts. The fellas formed Jane's addiction. Jane is a real person, a housemate of Perry Farrell's at the time, and Jane had a real drug addiction. Perry's in his late 20s,

the rest of the bands in their very early 20s. Direct quote from Dave Navarro on his general experience of this period. What do you want me to say? There was always five pounds of heroin, all the booze and coke you wanted,

all the girls you wanted, all looking for nothing but guys in bands. And I wasn't even old enough to legally drink yet. End quote. The whole band's larger, system. It strikes me now as as if I had the sex and drugs, I could do

without the rock and roll situation. But what do I know? I wasn't there. I'm just reading about it now and firing off quotes from This is Spinal Tap. The band plays a bunch of rad L.A. clubs with names that mean something to you if you lived in L.A. at the time. And they don't get kicked out of all

of them. Direct quote from Perry Farrell about his performing philosophy in this period. As long as I could whip out my dick, I knew I was alive. The live Jane's Addiction album from 87 includes covers of rock and roll by the Velvet Underground. Perry sounds like Mick Jagger and sympathy for the devil by the Rolling Stones. Perry sounds like Axel Rose.

It also includes an early version of the song Pigs in Zen, which to my mind is the Er Jane's Addiction song title, The Spirituality Inextricable from the Sleas, so on and so forth. Dave Navarro's rad guitar solos in this early version exemplify, the Live Moss Lifestyle. That is absolutely my last reference to the Live Moss lifestyle, I assure you. If you're into this band for the rad bass lines,

we are not the majority shareholders in the Jane's Addiction fandom, but we're a proud subculture all the same. I would direct you to the song called I Would for You, which is animated entirely by the chemistry between Perry Farrell and Eric Avery, a chemistry that's going to get super fucked up very soon. But yeah, for now, it's fantastic and will last forever.

That's as tender and conventionally lovely as Perry Farrell's voice gets, though, of course, nobody seeks out Perry Farrell for conventional loveliness. It's a trip, though, to revisit this live album now, to travel back to mid-80s, L.A., when Jane's addiction were local libertine heroes and not much else, with the knowledge that this was the song that would make these dudes internationally famous. Jane says Sergio He treat me like

Jane says is about that Jane again Her name is Jane Bainter Sergio was a drug dealer She knew who was manipulating her Her parents were divorced But her mother had remarried And moved to a house in the south of Spain And Jane had a standing offer

To go live there too If she could clean up Hence I'm going away to Spain And I'm gonna kick tomorrow Jane's doing great now By the way The Houston Chronicle tractor down in 2020 and she said, the story of Jane has a happy ending.

She also said, I've heard about students getting writing assignments in class to write about Jane says. Generally, I haven't told many people that I'm that Jane. It's a little awkward. It's a hard life being an addict. And it feels now like the song is about another person. End quote. By the time that live Jane's Addiction record comes out, they're hot shit, they're signed to a major label, and their studio debut, nothing shocking. coming comes out in 1988 in the studio version of Jane says, which you can still hear today,

150 times a day. That's a real number on any self-respecting radio station with rock anywhere in their name. Jane says quickly becomes what producer Dave Jordan describes as the stairway to heaven of modern rock. This is by far the tenderest Perry Farrell's voice will ever sound, though of course I'm guessing nobody seeks out Perry Farrell for tenderness. either. Perry Farrell's voice, the piercing, whining, slurring, slicing, fundamental libiditousness of Perry Farrell's voice was arguably the single most obscene element of 90s alt-rock radio. It felt like a parental advisory sticker could sing. And to my mind, the piercing, slurring aspect of his voice makes Jane says even lovelier. I'd always heard that line as, I wonder if they want me. It's probably I want them if they want me. But the ambiguity adds to the mystique and maybe even the loveliness. In what will become a pattern, if you can call two of something a pattern, the biggest song on nothing shocking will also be arguably the least

Jane's Addiction-esque song on nothing shocking, which most of the rest of the time sounds something like this. I'd never fully grasped that he's singing cash in now, honey. Cash in now, baby. That's funny. That song is called Mountain Song. Mountain Song is extraordinarily well-named. Nothing shocking starts with two songs called Up the Beach and Ocean Size. Also extraordinarily well-named. Nothing shocking features the song Summertime Rolls, which I believe we've established is the single Best JAN's Addiction song. This record feels monumental and elemental. Yes, oceans, mountains, summertime. Glossal natural beauty contrasted with colossal human ugliness. The song called Ted Just Admitted is about Ted Bundy. The song called Had a Dad is about how the dad in question is past tense. And you know who else is? God is dead, but the baselines are great.

Bad news, good news. This is 1988. Hair metal is still the law of the land as rock and roll goes, or as far as rock and roll and MTV goes. And we're three years away from smells. like teen spirit. I submit to you that the Jane's addiction of nothing shocking consists of equal parts alternative rock and forgive me, but cock rock. And when smells like teen spirit, when Nirvana's nevermind does emerge in 1991 and when alternative rock does sweep over the land, Jane's addiction

will already have done their part to ensure that there's a little bit of, sorry, once again, cock rock sneaking in there. What fascinates me now about Jane's addiction is that they sound to me now like exactly half an 80s band and half a 90s band. Yes, this is happening. It is time once again for my personal favorite SAT essay question. Did Grunge really kill hair metal? Did Jane's addiction bear witness to the assassination of Axel Rose by the Cowan? Kirk Cobain. Oh my God, who wrote that? You know, there arises on this show from time to time a conflict between writing Rob and speaking Rob. These are two distinct entities. I am speaking Rob, speaking to you now, but I am speaking verbatim words written by writing Rob, words often written

very recently by writing Rob, if you get my drift. But sometimes I suspect that writing Rob has written very dumb words on purpose just to antagonize and embarrass me, i.e. Speaking Rob, who has to say them, Writing Rob makes Speaking Rob play bass on a podcast. Writing Rob makes Speaking Rob speak in a very poor Scottish accent. Writing Rob makes Speaking Rob say shit like the assassination of Axel Rose by the coward Kirk Cobain. Writing Rob is my mortal enemy. We are engaged, if you will, in mortal combat,

writing Rob and I. A conflict is primordial and gargantuan as the mountains and the oceans. I will have my revenge one day on writing Robb. My attempts to exact this revenge are complicated, of course, by the fact that, to reiterate, writing Rob wrote every word that I just said.

Give me some time to figure this out. Now it's 1990 and Jane's Addiction sounds like this. Sorry, real quick, I just had to get the unadorned baseline in there. The song is called Three Days. This is the song that Perry Farrell once described as Jane's Addiction's Stairway to Heaven. I'm siding with Perry here. Eric Avery, though, folks, all-time baseline,

All time loitering and a Sam Ash baseline. I had to sneak that baseline in here. Let me try again, though. Now it's 1990, and Jane's Addiction Sound like this. Three Days is about the three days Perry Farrell spent having a threesome with his longtime girlfriend slash muse,

the artist and filmmaker Casey Nicoli, and another young lady named Ziola. He told Spin, We got high and danced with each other and made love and listened to beautiful, music made flower bouquets. It was really romantic. This biblical length threesome is immortalized, in fact, on the cover of the 1990 Jane's Addiction album, Ritual DeLo Habitual. It cover that, just like the cover of Nothing Shocking, featured quite explicit nudity, and as with Nothing

Shocking got censored all to fuck. On streaming services, Ritual still has the alternate super-censored cover, all white with the First Amendment printed on it. Anyway, Perry also, mentioned a spin that Zioa was found dead of a drug overdose at 19. And Casey, his girlfriend at the time, mentions that Zioa's family was very, very upset about this album cover. That's rock and roll, I guess. But what kind of rock and roll? Three Days is a love trilogy of sorts, I suppose, but it's more like a love septology. It's nearly 11 minutes long and mutates every minute or two. It's a tour de force. It starts out like, like slint and ends up like Joe Satriani, if you're the kind of person who describes songs as

a tour to force for a living. And your SAT essay question, just to modify it slightly, is, is the Jane's Addiction song three days where 80s hair metal peaks pretty late or where alternative rock peaks super early? Dave Navarro, ladies and gentlemen, that's Dave Navarro's favorite Jane's song to play live. Speaking of ladies and gentlemen, the ritual delo habitual album starts with a song called Stop, which starts like this. Seniors and Seniors,

we have more influence with his kids that you have. I took four years of Spanish in high school, but I have retained very little of it beyond Spanish 101 worksheet sentences of the Rafael and Louisa Tokan. El Piano variety. And at some point, I decided to take a perverse pride in my refusal to ever look up

the English translation of this, which I regret, now that I know that the second line there is, we have more influence over your children than you do, which is the hardest line in the Jane's Addiction canon. That's a killer line. And it gives you some idea of the cultural power this band wielded or claimed to wield here in 1990. Anyway, here's Dave Navarro Living Moss all over Stop. That reference doesn't count. Ritual is not as good an album as nothing shocking. Stop is great. Three days is fantastic. The rest is fine. The less good songs aren't as good as the less good songs on nothing shocking, which also includes, less we forget, the song's summertime rolls. But ritual overall is fine. Even the less good songs. songs are fine. The song ain't no right. For example, works fine as Perry Farrell's personal mission

statements. It's fine. Ritual snuck into the top 20 on the Billboard album chart and sold two million copies in the United States alone. And this, of course, is why. Two things. Number one, an element of Perry Farrell's voice that I genuinely appreciate is that I'm never 100% sure what he's saying. I have always heard that last line as I didn't try to steal then. It's just as simple as that, which doesn't make any sense, but I thought that was the point. Apparently, though, it's, I enjoy stealing. It's just as simple as that, which yeah, that makes more sense. And number two, have you ever wondered what Perry stole or tried to steal when he was five? He told Rowley Stone it was a pink rubber ball, a penzy pinky, as they were known. That's not a pornographic item. That's a

It's a rubber ball. You played stick ball with them in the 50s and 60s. Costs 15 cents or so in the late 50s when Perry was born. That's what he got caught stealing. I'm glad I finally looked that up to. You read these oral histories and anniversary interviews and so forth, and you get the impression that the dudes and Jane's addiction don't care that much about been caught stealing the song, at least when compared to other longer, more serious, more raucous songs, like three days. Dave Jordan, who produced both Nothing Shocking and Ritual, he told Spin, when the label told us that Bin caught stealing was going to be the single, we were surprised. I hate to classify it as a novelty song, but we just considered it a fun track. Ted Gardner, the band's tour manager, called it one of those quirky little songs. They threw in the sample of Perry's dog barking on a whim, which they probably wouldn't have done if this song really mattered to them. But here, the dog barking arguably makes the whole song or the crucial first 10 seconds of the song.

Dave Navarro talking to Raleighstone about the dog said, I don't know that we thought of it as being that obscure or outrageous. He was just barking in the studio while we were playing that song and we said, oh, that sounds kind of cool. Let's put him in there. And the next thing we know, we're the dog barking sound band. It was just like something to make us smirk to each other. I don't think we ever thought it through that people would actually hear it. I know I didn't. End quote. With apologies to my beloved alt-rock radio,

the reason most people heard that dog barking was MTV. My original plan was to not rewatch the video for Ben Cot Stealing, which as a teenager I saw a billion times on MTV. That's a joke number. Casey Nicoli directed it. It's not that I worried it wouldn't hold up. It's more I thought that nostalgia whiplash might fuck my head up. I rewatched it, though.

I'm fine. Thank you for your concern. I did remember correctly that the guitar solo is when the supermarket dance party starts. I had not remembered how disconcerting Perry Farrell looks with a stocking covering his face. He looks freaky. Dude, son, you got a panty on your head. The bin caught stealing video, which looks like it cost $30, but gets the most out of those $30. And chiefly consists of a scrawny dude dressing up as a much larger,

lady just so he can stick a pineapple up his dress was the precise mixture of whimsical and subversive that MTV required in 1990. MTV, Luminary John Norris, and that spin thing said, back then the word alternative did sort of mean something. And that sure as hell was an alternative to everything else MTV was playing at the time. There was drag in it, played for laughs years before the foo fighters did it. There were no chicks with big sprayed hair. There was one actually, but that's fewer than usual. And you've got your lead singer who you're supposed to see wearing a stocking on his face. There was something in the air, and James was pushing the boundaries.

The network played the hell out of it. End quote. The video won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video, and Dave Navarro and Casey Nicoli accepted it. And Casey appears to have ingested a Jane's Addiction album full of contraband. is how I will describe Casey's demeanor. That video is worth tracking down just because Billy Idol is the presenter and I can't

possibly prepare you for how exactly Billy Idol produces shit. I'm going to forget to play you Eric Avery's baseline. I promised you an exhaustive analysis of Eric Avery's baseline. So here you go. This baseline is very

quietly dope as hell. That's fucking sick, dude. My impulse here is to describe been caught stealing as a Trojan horse for alternative culture here in 1990, a Trojan horse for both the proud subversion and the shameless commodification of alternative culture, but I can't work out what the Trojan horse looks like on the outside versus what's hiding on the inside, if that makes any sense. I've lost track of what's the subversive part and what's the commodified part. Maybe the commodification is the subversive part. You ever think of that? I just crossed 8,000 words, lightning round.

At some point, Eric Avery made a drunken pass at Casey Nicoli, Perry's girlfriend, as you recall. And Perry got super pissed. And long story short, Eric ain't into the band anymore, even post-reunion. It took Jane's 13 years to make another record. Perry and Stephen Perkins, the drummer, started another band called Pornow for Pyros, who had a medium-ish hit in 1993 called Pets. And actually, this is an excellent 10-second radio intro in terms of

the song taking forever to get going. The first porno for Pyro's record was inspired by the L.A. riots. It gets pretty weird about it. But whoops, I'm almost out of time. Too bad. Dave Navarro, meanwhile, hooked up briefly with the red hot chili peppers for the criminally underrated 1995 album One Hot Minute. I played a little guitar too, and I tried to learn Dave's guitar solo from my friends,

and it was a giant fiasco. I was living Manos, if you catch my drift. Also, Perry Farrow co-founded Lollapalooza, initially a traveling music festival and dominant lifestyle brand in which the whole crowd

got into the Trojan horse, which was then pushed through the gates of American society, I guess. The Trojan horse metaphor is a very poor fit here in general. I try this. Perry Farrow loaded the entire alternative

nation, a whole generation of alternative rock-loving teenagers into the Trojan horse. But this time the big surprise was that everyone in the horse thought he was pushing the horse through the gates of an orgy, but it turns out he pushed it into a bank. That kind of works. That doesn't work. Predictably, the lightning around is deteriorating. You get people claiming that Jane's addiction were Nirvana before Nirvana. People like, okay, Jane's addiction manager Charlie Brown, Charlie with an E.Y, who told

spin. If James hadn't happened, Seattle wouldn't have happened. That's self-serving, of course. But you also get Chris Cornell from Soundgarden, rest in peace, saying that Jane's addiction had a huge influence on Soundgarden. And Jane's addiction are living proof that alternative rock as a sound or a brand didn't start with Nirvana. Here's what I know. Or more importantly, here's what I thought I knew. By 1992 and I was 14, Jane's Adolph. addiction equaled peri-ferral, equaled Lalapalooza, equaled alternative rock, equaled my entire conception of what cool was. I was too young, too intimidated, to prude, too afraid to attend Lollapalooza myself. But I remember distinctly, sitting in an algebra class, my freshman year and this

older kid sitting behind me was wearing a Lollapalooza 92 T-shirts. That year was Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sound Garden, Pearl Jam, Ministry, Ice Cube, etc. That lineup terrified me. And this kid in my algebra class terrified me. He struck me as like eight years older than me, which is unlikely, but technically possible. He had a beard. He had a dark vibe. He glowered. I thought he was going to kick my ass. I thought he was going to chuck me out the window. In my memory, he looked a little like Mo, not from the Simpsons or the Three Stooges, but Moe from Calvin and Hobbs, the comic strip, the bully with a bad haircut and a big nose and no eyes and he punched Calvin

a lot. Picture Moe from Calvin and Hobbs in a Lollapalooza t-shirt. You know what? Make it a Jane's Addiction T-shirt. This kid scared the shit out of me. I don't remember his name. But I do remember eventually realizing that he was harmless.

He was chill. He was friendly. You didn't beat me up. He talked to me. He answered my questions. He described to me in granular detail what Lalataloosa was like.

You could say that I wanted something, but I didn't want to pay for it. There's a lesson there somewhere. That alternative rock. About being cool. about being dangerous, about being young, I've lost track of what the lesson is.

Maybe I just never learn the lesson. Maybe I just can't play bass and talk at the same time. But they're in high school, working through my 6,600 hours of alt rock radio, I heard the end of the Jane's Addiction song been caught stealing like 200,000 times. That's a real number. The song ends like this.

And even today, that little clip still makes me lean, forward, wondering what the next song will be. We are so thrilled and honored to be joined by Carina Longworth, host of the Incredible Film Podcast. You Must Remember This, whose current season is called Erotic 80s. Karina, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm such a big fan of this show. That's awesome to hear. That's wonderful. Likewise, and it's great to talk to you. Thank you so much. You said to me, and this was quite striking to me, you said, what smells like teen spirit was for everyone else, been caught stealing was for me. I would love to know everything about it. Okay. Well, certainly I think one of the reasons why Jane's addiction was important to me as a pretty young person. I mean, been caught stealing came out when I was 10 years old is because they were such a Los Angeles phenomenon. and I was growing up in Los Angeles.

And so pretty much, you know, already by then, I think, because they had been around for a couple years by then, the sort of Jane's addiction look was around me. I mean, I knew, you know, anybody I knew who had kind of an older brother or sister in high school, like, there was always some girl around who had like purple dreadlocks. You know, there was just a very specific vibe. And then seeing the Bencott Stealing video on MTV was really kind of a flashpoint for me in terms of understanding that there was something that was not Paula Abdul. And there was something that was not Van Halen or Guns and Roses. You know, it's like at that point, I think my understanding of music. And I was into music and I was into MTV, but what I was into was like Madonna. And, you know, maybe the hit singles of Guns and Roses.

And so I, previous to Jane's addiction, I kind of divided music into country, which I wasn't interested in. Rap, which I wasn't interested in as a 10-year-old white girl in Los Angeles. You know, like dance pop music, like Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Madonna, which I was interested in. And then like hard rock, like Van Halen, Guns and Roses, you know, this warrant. that kind of stuff that was also on MTV. And Jane's addiction was just seeing that the being cut stealing video, which is like, you know, really appropriate for children because it's just kind of a bunch of freaks hanging out in a grocery store, like dancing around having fun, even though it's about shoplifting. You know, it was a really insidious gateway drug for me to become interested in kind of a counterculture at way too young of an age. culture that was pretty accessible to me. I mean, there were definitely, when I was in fifth

grade, there were definitely six graders at my school who were smoking pot and listening to music like this. Okay, so there's a lot to unpack here, actually. Okay, so purple dreadlocks, how else would you describe the look that flourished in L.A. as a result of Jane's Addiction? What was that vibe? So I think I said in an email to you that for me, if I had to nail what the Jane's Addiction aesthetic is, it's beach goth. And it's sort of beach goth cabaret, like there's a theatricality to it. You know, so it takes goth and it puts it, first of all, in a T-shirt and shorts. And it's goth and it's skateboarding and it's surfing.

But it still manages to be, you know, pale in the face, if not in the forearms. Yeah. You know, purple lipstick or red lipstick, black dreadlocks or purple dreadlocks. or purple dreadlocks. Sometimes, you know, it could be like the sort of cobalt blue dyed hair. Yeah, so basically it's like, it's a goth aesthetic, but sort of multiplied by psychedelics and multiplied by beachy pursuits. Okay.

That's a vivid image. That's perfect. That's absolutely perfect. So at 10 years old, do they strike you? Jane's addiction is like a completely different. an animal from Guns and Roses or Van Halen. I'm always interested in this question of like an alternative rock band versus like a hard rock band, as you say, or like a hair metal band versus a grunge band?

Like were they actually totally different or were they just presented differently on MTV, basically? And you thought of them differently, but there's a lot more commonality now that you think about it. Well, certainly there's more commonality. But back then, I think that things felt very niche. Like there were very specific boxes that things went into. And I probably perceived to Jane's addiction as being really different from Warrant or Van Halen because of the way MTV filed them.

You know, I mean, like they would call it an alternative video. And they would, you know, show it and be like, if you want to have more of this in your life, watch 120 minutes. And so that's when at 10 years old, I started setting the VCR to record 120 minutes or sometimes, you know, sneaking out of my room. late at night to watch it. It's important research. It set you on your path. So the L.A. of it all. I mean, I have to say, like, I already knew a lot of music that was being played on 120 minutes because of K-Rock, you know, which was the really important alternative radio station in Los Angeles at the time, which was kind of going through a transition at that time from playing pretty much exclusively, like British music, like the Smith's, Depeche Mode, Petchap Boy, stuff like that, to then bringing in some of this American alternative.

stuff. And then it would become just the capital of grunge, probably by 1991. Did they get behind in Jane's addiction, like even pre-been-caught stealing? Or is that sort of where they got on the bandwagon? Well, I wasn't there before. I didn't know who Jane's addiction was pre-been-caught stealing. Although once I got into the band, I mean, I do like nothing shocking better than ritual, De La Habitual. Me too, yeah. But I think it was the same for me. I think been caught stealing was the Gateway Drug, just MTV, you know, watching it from Ohio. It's interesting to me. Like, do you, did it feel like an LA band, even though you're a 10-year-old, even if you're not out in this scene that they've created? Does it still feel like a local band in any sense or just someone

who you understand a little bit more because you are in L.A.? I think they felt like a local band just in terms of the videos. I mean, that sort of corner grocery store is something that feels very L.A. The video for Stop is really a montage of L.A. stuff. It's like they're playing a show in what looks like Griffith Park and then Perry's surfing. And then for some reason, like there's a businessman taking an escalator ride like amongst downtown high rises. It's a metaphor. Yeah. Yeah. So that that definitely was really recognizable to me at 10 or 11 as being like this is about the place I live in the same way that like Chili Pepper's iconography was. Of course. Were you into the chili peppers at this time?

I don't remember when Under the Bridge was released, but I mean. 91. Yeah, so that was later. But that's what got me into the chili peppers. Okay. I keep rephrasing this question in my head and it only gets worse. And so, Karina, would you describe Jane's addiction as erotic? I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry. Again, like that's a very inappropriate question because I discovered them when I was 10. That's part of the reason, yeah. But certainly I was attracted to something that I can now peg as being sort of like polymorphous sexuality in it. You know, there was definitely an like open conversation about threesomes about interracial relationships. Just to this sense of like, you know, like I guess queer. would be a word that you could use, but it's more about gender bending,

you know, kind of like breaking down the heteronormative understandings that were in so much other music at the time. It wasn't straight music, it wasn't gay music. It was something that kind of blew open all of those ideas. Yeah, I don't get the sense that people now remember 90s rock as particularly sexy, right? Like grunge, Nirvana, Seattle.

I don't think that music was trying to be sexy the way like Sunset Strip hair metal was very explicitly trying to be sexy. This is what I'll say about this. So Jane's Addiction is music made largely under the influence of heroin. So is Nirvana and Allison Chains. But you don't really feel like they're spending the same types of nights, these bands, you know?

Like you can imagine Allison Chains just like after the show, like doing a lot of heroin and passing out. Whereas with Jane's addiction, you imagine, like doing a little bit of heroin and drinking some red wine and, you know, everybody just comes over and gets on the mattress together. And, you know, we'll just see where it goes. Exactly. I mean, I personally have very little experience with drugs or with hedonism as Perry Farrell

would define it. So even now I listen to Jane's Addiction, like almost in an anthropological way. Like, do you get more out of this music, if you can relate to the seediness of it all. Or do you actually get more out of this music if you can't and you're living vicariously through their hedonism? Yeah, I mean, I definitely feel like it's music about, like, heroin orgies for people who are not having heroin orgies.

Correct. Exactly. That's perfect. Yeah. So I did most of my listening to Jane's addiction between the ages of, I would say, 10 and 14. Okay. I had not done heroin or had an orgy. at all during those points. My limited experience with both of those things would happen much later, at which point I was not listening to Jane's Addiction at all.

Aha. That's probably, that's profound, actually. When you did get into hedonism, even in a mild sort of way, like the way you pictured those things when you were listening to Jane's addiction, like how did that compare to like the actual experience of those things? The Jane's Addiction prepare you,

you know, for your wilder days, or did it just not feel at all like you thought it would? Well, I think it prepared me in the sense that it got me interested in just subculture and counterculture in general, which kind of put me in contact with the right kind of people to have hedonistic experiences with. But I mean, I think that I think of, I really have very nostalgic feelings about Jane's addiction, and I still will, you know, put some of those songs on a jukebox and a dive bar. I really do like some of the music still, but it's also vaguely embarrassing.

It's like having been really into the doors. Right, right. You know, it's like trying to bury like your carolack phase. Bukowski, right. Yeah, no, I totally get that. I mean, the word Lalapalooza, of course, became like shorthand for the 90s in some ways, for alternative culture, like the commodified version of 90s rock, like the brands. Like does that mean that Perry Farrell succeeded in his overall mission or does it mean that he got

so commercial and uncool that he actually kind of failed in the end? Well, didn't he, and you know, you'll have to fact check this, but my memory is that he like sued Lollapalooza two years in or at least was trying to distance himself from it? I think there was a lot. I don't remember a lawsuit off-hand. but there was a lot of internal rancor, right? Like, by the time Lala Paloosa gets Metallica to headline, like, I think Perry is long gone. And, like, he forms, like, another music festival that fails at first.

But, like, oh, yeah, I went to it. I went to Enits. Enits, right. How was that? The most embarrassing thing about me being a Jane's addiction fan is that I was too young to ever see Jane's addiction before they broke up. But I did see porno for pyros. Wow.

How was that? How was that? You know, they had two jams, not enough to sustain a set. That might be generous. Yeah, that's a good record, but there's like pets and then, you know, pick your own second jam. They have one point five jams pending on. Cursed female. That's right.

That is a good one. That's a good one. You might have made, you're the only person I've ever talked to who went to the Enit festival. So that's. I was going through some stuff in my. personal life at that time. But it was also like, it was, that was like a real gateway drug to raving.

Right, right. Yes. He was early on that, yes. A concert that you could buy tickets to, you know, at Blockbuster Music and, you know, tell your parents that you were going to go stay at somebody's parents like Big Bear Cabin for the weekend and then, you know, do shrooms on like a ski slope while orbital was opening for peri-ferral's porno for pyros. Wow.

You've had some experiences. I am jealous. I think I'm jealous. So I was listening to your current season on erotic 80s. Now, I was thinking about like Jane's Addiction album covers, right? Like both of them were basically censored. Like the ritual cover on streaming services is still the censored version.

It's the one that's all white with the First Amendment on it. It's corny. It's super corny of me to say that Jane's addiction made erotic thriller music. But like, I guess that's what I'm saying. Was this band Body Heat in musical form, Karina? No. Not at all. Oh, thank goodness. I did not want to be right about that. I'm relieved. Look, I mean, I, you know, I can send you and your listeners a link to the Spotify playlist I made to go along with my podcast season, which is full of. songs from actual erotic thrillers and the other movies that I talk about in this season. To me, the sound of erotic thrillers is like somewhere in between sex by Berlin, uh, relaxed by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which has a big moment in the Brian De Palma film, body double. And then like the sort of Brian Ferry, like solo stuff that would be in nine and

a half weeks or like Shaday. Right, right. Okay. Yeah. So like what Jane's Addiction is doing, Like, I mean, it's so narrative. The songs are so narrative for the most part. And so it's like, it's not actually, it would not actually be a good accompaniment to a thrilling eroticism in film or life, I don't think. Also, like, Perry Farrell's voice is not sexy. No, okay. I'm relieved to hear you say it.

Yeah, it's kind of like podcasts with guitar solos. I mean, she has a real Borsh belt vibe. He does, right. Well, he's from, yeah, he's from Queens. You know, he's a Jewish kid from Queens. Absolutely. Yeah, and so he's doing sort of like this Jewish goth surfer cabaret thing, you know, about, like, having threesomes. And so, I mean, certainly this is thrilling eroticism to someone, but I find it very different than the erotic thriller movies of the 80s and 90s.

Certainly. Okay, well, you're the expert. I thank you for talking me out of that. You're right. I'm thinking about it now, and you're right that like the Jane's Addiction songs are very narrative driven. It's like, I stole some stuff. We had a threesome, you know, I'm mad at my dad, like, et cetera. Like, it's, these are, they're fairly literal songs when you get right down to it.

And I appreciate that about them, but that does make them inappropriate for a lot of situations. Yeah. I mean, also like, I mean, I think that probably, I, you know, masterpiece is stretching it. but I think probably like the quintessential Jane's Addiction song is Ted just admitted. Ah, okay. That's interesting. That is sort of like alt rock opera in a way. Yeah.

I like that one. I would say three days probably, but I think, no, I can see that. And that's Ted Bundy, like pretty explicitly, right? Like, that's just them doing the fascinated by serial killers thing. That was also sort of fun. A lot of that of the 90s, 9-inch nails and so forth. Is it oversimplifying it to say that the red hot chili peppers have had the multi-decade superstar career that Jane's addiction could have had? Or is it sort of essential to the greatness

of Jane's addiction that they really couldn't keep it together? Well, definitely. In fact, like when they do get back together and they make that album strays, I mean, I was long gone from the fandom by the time that happens. Certainly I had seen episodes of entourage without understanding that the entourage theme song is a Jane's Addiction song. How did I forget that? I mean, that is just face palm emoji for me. I blocked that out.

I blocked that right out. How did I do this? We wish that hadn't happened. We wish they had all died, I guess. Wow. Wow. It's, you know, let's bring it back to erotic thrillers. You know, I'm going to have an episode coming out.

It might be out by the time this comes out about nine and a half weeks and Mickey Rourke. And, you know, Mickey Rourke, after nine and a half weeks, made all these movies that were sort of flops. And he kind of fell into this very self-destructive, you know, I'm going to quit acting to become a boxer situation. And he was, you know, sort of trying to make a comeback. This is years and years and years before the wrestler. and Adrian Lyne, who directed him in nine and a half weeks, was asked for a quote by the LA Times. And he says something like, if Mickey Roark had died while he was making Angel Heart, he would be James Dean. Unfortunately, he didn't.

And so that's just kind of what I meant when I said, like, too bad, Jane's Addiction didn't die. Because if they had just left behind those two albums, you know, their reputation, pretty pristine. And there would be this sort of sense of mystery about like this crazy band. that did all the drugs and, like, hated each other and, you know, had all of this sort of sexual drama as well. But, you know, then they kept going and then they were on entourage. And now they're still out there opening for smashing pumpkins. I believe that's a dual bill, Karina. I think they're sharing headline. They're not sharing headline. And to be like 60-something Perry Farrell and opening for Billy Corrigan, you know? Sixty-three. That's both of those are tough.

facts to swallow. He's 63 years old and he's opening for it. They're doing, I can't bring myself to watch it, but I think on the Howard Stern show, like this is like in the last two days or something, like they duet on Jane says, Billy Corgan and the two prettiest voices in an alternative rock. Together at last on the Howard Stern show, it's going to take me a few days to work up the courage. Who is in Smashing Pumpkins now? Yeah, that's a good question. Billy and the drummer and a couple other people. It varies. Whoever, you know, whoever is cool with hanging around with Billy Corgan at this point.

The drummer is still around. Jimmy might be, James Iha might be back as well, actually, now. Well, the international bar probably is closed, so I don't know where else he has to go. Right, yes. So that's an inside joke for people who hung out in the East Village and 2003. Lots of those people listen to this show. I was going to ask you who's been caught stealing career is more important to you,

Perry Farrell's or Dave Navarro's. It sounds like it's neither, which is totally fine. Well, you know, I definitely, like, devoted more attention to Perry Farrell when I was devoting attention to this and lost track of Dave Navarro. And, you know, then 20 years later was surprised to hear that he had a tattoo show. right yes he's a reality show right and so he's sort of a i guess like mainstream cable television character now right he's in the live uh the the reality tv universe he's going to pop up on a real housewives situation you know sooner rather than later and that's that'll be great that'll be

great for him i as a frontman do they make them like peri feral anymore like you don't see too many glamy cede like full frontal nudity rock and roll singers the days is that maybe for the best ultimately do you see many rock and roll singers nowadays not really there's that band monoskin i don't think anyone can figure out how to pronounce but like they're popular and i'm sort of mystified by it but all i can they seem to have they're the closest thing i've seen to a james addiction vibe you know and they are not even close but they seem to be satisfying some need for like a medium sleazy rock star vibe if like you miss that. But I think that very few people, that band Buck Cherry, if you don't remember,

yeah, if you don't remember them, like, stay out of it. But, like, I think they had the similar sort of vibe. Like, I don't think there's a lot of call for this anymore, you know, and maybe we have moved past it largely as a culture. And again, it's probably for the best. I mean, what I would say is that I think that, you know, the kids today maybe do not understand the ways in which culture was so divided, circa 1990. And so Jane's addiction in a weird way brought together a few different groups because it was music that like a jock could be into if they didn't know what they looked like. You know, and so, and again, like it seemed to speak to like various types of sexuality and various types of drug taking and various types of recreational

activities. Like, you know, the skaters could sort of hang out with people who played basketball. And that is very L.A. That's like all of these things coming together in Venice Beach. Have you seen the film Southland Tales? I did. It's been a long time, but yes. So my memory of that movie is, and the thing that I found myself defending about it to people who didn't like it was that Richard Kelly, the writer-director, was kind of conjuring this Venice Beach scene where all of these sort of like spiritual and profane forces kind of came together. And that to me just felt like one notch above the reality of Venice Beach. And what I associated that Venice Beachness with from my personal experience was like the Jane's Addiction scene. Yeah.

The last thing I would say is like giving Perry Farrell credit where it's due. Like I'm looking at the first Lollapalooza lineup. I don't think either of us went to like a classic Lala Palluzza, 90s Lollapalooza before it's. I went to 93. 94. Ah, okay. All right. So you're much cooler than me again. But I'm looking at the first, I'm looking at Lalaplusa in 1991. And like, I think this feels mundane to people now, but like Jane's addiction, Susie and the Banshees, ice tea, nine inch nails, like Henry Rollins bands. Like, that was kind of a revolutionary thing to like bring all those people together, as you say, like all these

divided subcultures. Like that's a thing that Perry Farrell kind of did that Lalapalooza did that is now so normal that it no longer feels, you know, subversive in the moment, the way it felt in the moment. Like, it felt like a wild thing in the early 90s, at least to me, that like he would bring together these groups, these artists who didn't go together, whose fans didn't go together. Yeah, totally. And I mean, you know, I think IST has talked about this of like, you know, he with body count, he wasn't really accepted by the metal people and he wasn't accepted by the rap people, but Perry kind of took him in. Right. So that's, in the end, we love you, Perry Farrow. Honestly, we do. This has been awesome, Karina. Thank you so much for talking me out of my,

my bullshit theories, and thank you for setting me straight. You're welcome. I find it hilarious, actually, the erotic thriller thing. I think it's, I'm happy to, I'm happy to like go deeper on it if you want. Okay. We'll bring you back for that later, but thank you so much, Karina. Thank you. Thank you very much to our guests this week, Corita Longworth. Thanks as always to our producers, Justin Sales and Jonathan Kerma. And thank you very much for listening. And now, without further ado, here's Jane's Addiction with Bin Cod Stealing.

We'll see you next week.