Ryan's Book Review: Whores

Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction by Brendan Mullen

Jane's Addiction, Three Days

Ritual de lo Habitual (1990)

Synopsis: The author collects various quotes from pretty much everybody that had anything to do with Jane's Addiction and sequences them to tell the story of the band's origin and eventual destruction, as well as the attempted self-destruction of the members.

Review:  This was a pretty interesting book with all the drugs and sex of Scar Tissue, as well as a lot of overlap in events and characters.  I liked Scar Tissue better because it was a little more introspective, but it was really interesting to get more than one side of every story.

It made me think Perry Farrell is a huge asshole, though (but he's really funny).  By reading this book, you will really get a sense of how important Jane's was.  As important as Nirvana was, Jane's was kind of the epicenter of the explosion that became alternative rock in the 1990's.  There's a quote in the book from Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante who describes the band like this:

Jane's Addiction was so far beyond anything I thought a rock band could be.  It was so scary it just seemed like they were a bunch of murderers on stage!  I just didn't think rock music could be that powerful.  There was this darkness and this magical glow that had nothing to do with the music; this whole other energy that had nothing to do with human beings on stage playing music.  I can only imagine that would be the same kind of energy that would be around Jesus Christ.

That pretty much sums them up.

One of the big mysteries for me has always been how Jane's Addiction could make two masterpieces, Nothing's Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual, and then all their other individual (and reunited-ish) efforts would be so mediocre in comparison.  After reading this book, my mind is made up that not only was there definitely a "whole being greater than the sum of its parts" thing going on, but Eric Avery was the alchemical soul of the band and without him, they're just not the same (although it's not in the book, it's worth noting that he was Tool's first choice to play bass when Paul D'Amour left in 1995, but Avery declined).

Anyway, this was a pretty cool book.  Jane's Addiction apparently has a new album coming out in August 2011, but I don't think Avery is a part of it (though he did tour with the band from 2008-2010).  We'll see.  The first single is out now and it doesn't sound anywhere near as shocking as anything on the first two.  But then again, nothing's shocking.  Ha!  See what I did there?