Welcome to Californication II

El nacimiento.
Pasados varios ensayos y varias canciones grabadas, quedaba una pendiente...
"Back in the studio, things were going well, but the one song that was so important to me was less important to everybody else. That was 'Californication'. Every time I'd bring it up, everyone would go, 'We've got twenty-five other songs recorded. We don't need another one.'
'No, we have to have this', I urged. 'This is the anchor of the whole record. It's as good as lyric as I've written in a long time. It has to be a song' I was not letting go. I kept telling John that we had to finish it. Meanwhile, the session was winding down, and we had only a few days of basic track recording left. In the last moments of recording, John came running into the studio with his thirty-thousand-dollar White Falcon hollow-body guitar. He said 'I've got it! I've got Californication'! He sat down and plucked this incredibly sparse yet haunting combination of notes. It was so different from any other approach that we'd taken for the song that I didn't quite hear it. Then he started singing it, and it was at the high end of my range, but it was doable.
He taught it to Flea and Chad, and we rehearsed it a couple of times and recorded it. It was such a sensation of relief and gratification, to know that the song didn't end up in the same trash bin as 'Quixotic Elixir' and a number of other songs that I had high hopes for.
Kiedis, Anthony; Sloman, Larry. Scar Tissue. Hyperion, 2004, p. 418

Welcome to Californication I

Ese es el título del capítulo de Scar tissue sobre el álbum.
Para empezar, El episodio de las Spice Girls. Es un poco largo, pero seguro que se van a divertir.
Comienza contando que les tomó un tiempo retomar lo que habían dejado hace unos cuantos años y que John Frusciante no estaba del todo bien, tanto física como mentalmente (había abusado de drogas y casi muere por sobredosis durante su ausencia de la banda). Se juntaban en lo de Flea a tocar y Gwen Stefani, la cantante de No doubt, y sus amigos los escuchaban ensayar por ser ella una "vecina lejana" del mencionado bajista. "My friends come over, and we sit around and listen. It sounds great!".
Más tarde nombra un episodio muy divertido acerca de una fiesta para Clara, la hija de Flea, quien en ese momento cumplía 10 años. Así empieza "Flea had been arguing for months and months with Clara when it came to the background music in their house, because Flea wanted to hear Coltrane, and Clara had the Spice Girls on a nonstop loop. So Flea decided we were going to pull a stunt at her birthday party. He dropped the hint to Clara that the Spice Girls themselves might show up at her party. And, of course, we would be the Spice Girls."
John Coltrane era un un saxofonista de jazz. Creo que lo demás para los que saben inglés está muy claro, ni me gasto en traducirlo...
"The likenesses wew obvious. Flea would be Baby Spice. John was Sporty Spice. Chris Warren, our drum technician, was enlisted to play Scary Spice, and I would be Posh Spice. Thank god Ginger Spice was already out of the band and we didn't have to fill her shoes. [...] we got the right clothes and the right wigs and wore the right makeup. We each studied the personality and the body language of our Spice Girl, and learned the dance moves. We even had some rehearsals."
"Come the day of the pary, Clara had her whole clan of ten-year-old friends over, all of whom lived and died for the Spice Girls. [...] The music started, and the little girls all freaked out, screaming "Oh my God" as we walked down the giant staircase and they caught a glimpse of these fabulous costumes. Then something slowly started to filter into their little minds.
'Wait a second, these are not the Spice Girls. In fact, these are not even girls, these are men dressed like Spice Girls. EEEEWWWWWWWW!'
[...] Scary Spice was phenomenal, Baby Spice was terrifying with her gap Flea tooth, and John absolutely nailed Sporty, working on it morning, noon, and night until his character was there. Posh was easy; she was just an aloof, uptight, narcissistic shoppping girl. We took our little vocal solos and did our dances. I had on a really shorts skirts, because Posh wears her dresses too short, but I forgot to take into consideration that I was a man in front of kids. I don't think any of them have ever recovered, because we didn't shave our legs."
Dios, me resulta increíble leer esto y saber que pasó de verdad.
Kiedis, Anthony; Sloman, Larry. Scar Tissue. Hyperion, 2004, p. 405-406

Encuesta sobre las canciones de Californication

Hoy cerró la encuesta sobre las mejores canciones de la era Californication.
Antes de dar los resultados, quiero aclarar que Christchurch fireworks music corresponde a la era By the way y lo puse porque me confundí. Bunker hill, si bien aparece en el single de Can't stop, pertenece a Californication (lo sacaron más tarde). La cantidad de votos de Christchurch aparecerá en la encuesta sobre las mejores de By the way por défault.
Ahora sí, los resultados en base a 40 votantes:

Californication	27
Scar tissue	17
Otherside	17
Around the world	14
Parallel universe	13
Easily	13
Road trippin'	11
Emit remmus	8
I like dirt	8
This velvet glove	8
Purple stain	8
Porcelain	7
Savior	7
Right on time	7
Quixoticelixer	7
Bunker hill	7
Get on top	6
Gong Li	6
Over funk	5
Instrumental #2	5
End of show Brisbane	5
Phat dance	4
Instrumental #1	4
Teatro jam	4
How strong	4

Como era de esperarse, ganó Californication por goleada. Estoy seguro que mucho de los votos fueron de gente boludeando, como los 4 que tiene How strong, pero de todas maneras estoy feliz por la cantidad de votantes.

Cumpleaños

Hoy, primero de noviembre, es el cumpleaños número 45 de mi mentor, Mr. Diabetes, Tony Flow o Anthony Kiedis, como quieran llamarle. En fin, no tengo mucho tiempo para escribir sobre él ni nada, así que dejo este comentario y foto casi simbólicos como feliz cumpleaños para él.
Para cerrar dejo una frase muy buena que encontré en una revista: "Tenés que ser un boludo para, a esta altura, reducir lo nuestro a 'Ah, esos idiotas que salen desnudos'. Siempre fue una experiencia espiritual".
PD: mañana cierra la votación a las mejores canciones de la era Californication, estoy muy feliz por todos los votos, que para ser este blog, son una barbaridad. Seguiré posteando cosas cuando tenga más tiempo (es decir, el año que viene o el siguiente, después de la banda de materias que tengo para rendir).
Una vez más, gracias a todos los que entran.