janesaddiction.org

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
March 10, 1989
HOT TICKETS

SOURCE: Next week's best bets in live music, as selected by Post-Dispatch reviewers. The emphasis is on acts you might otherwise overlook.

DON'T MISS

Boys of the Lough, Westport Playhouse, Saturday, March 18

Considered by some to be as good as the Chieftains, the Boys of the Lough consist of five Celtic musicians who combine guitar and piano with traditional folk instruments, including the wood flute, uillean pipes, penny whistle, fiddle, mandolin and banjo.

Having just celebrated their 20th anniversary, the Boys remain true to their heritage by performing music of their homelands, including Ireland, Scotland, the Shetland Isles and England's Northumberland region. Performances typically include jigs, hornpipes, reels and songs that date to 1690, with a few original compositions thrown in as well.

With 18 albums to their credit, including two Grammy Award nominations, the Boys of the Lough are worth experiencing.

- Terri F. Reilly

ALSO RECOMMENDED

The Proclaimers, Mississippi Nights, Monday, March 13

These Scottish twins have been described as ''pop refuseniks,'' ''Caledonia's answer to the Everly Brothers'' and ''Hank Williams with a Scottish accent.''

Jane's Addiction, Mississippi Nights, Tuesday, March 14

Grammy-nominated (''Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance'' 1988) and in favor with lots of critics, Jane's Addiction is the hottest thing going from the L.A. headbanger scene, although frontman Perry Farrell really needs to get over himself.

Scartaglen, St. Louis Art Museum (presented by Focal Point), Wednesday, March 15

Another very good Irish band to help celebrate St. Pat's Day. Although the group has Celtic roots, it isn't afraid to branch out with some hybrids.

Mid-America Jazz Festival, Sheraton-St. Louis Hotel, March 17-19

Featured will be the Louie Bellson Quartet and Banu Gibson and her New Orleans Hot Jazz Orchestra, plus many other favorites. Call 863-2268 for more information.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
March 13, 1989
Rock's Newest Renegade Band...Jane's Addiction reaps controversy, Grammy nomination
Author: By Sharon Liveten
Entertainment News Service

JANE'S ADDICTION has done more than take the title of its debut album, "Nothing's Shocking," to heart. The members of the metal/folk band have adopted it as their personal motto.

Case in point I: Last summer, the band sparked a furor when it refused to replace the cover art on its first LP with something less controversial. Record retailers across the country retaliated by pulling "Nothing's Shocking" from store shelves, saying the cover - a depiction of naked, female Siamese twins with their hair ablaze - was pornographic.

Case in point II: Six months later, the band confronted MTV programming executives with its first promotional video, for the tune "Mountain Song." The performance clip was intercut with a bizarre story line involving lead singer Perry Ferrell, a bed and a nude woman.

In just a short time, Jane's Addiction has successfully fulfilled its collective vow to shock by establishing itself as rock's newest renegade band.

How, then, did Jane's Addiction manage to wrangle a Grammy nomination from the ultraconservative members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences? It was nominated in the new heavy metal/hard rock category, along with Metallica, AC/DC, Iggy Pop and the eventual winner, Jethro Tull.

But a Grammy nomination? For Jane's Addiction?

"You know when things like this happen to the band, it always comes out of the blue," said Perry Ferrell (yes, the pseudonym is a pun on peripheral). "I sure didn't sit around thinking, 'Oh, the Grammys are coming around. I wonder if we'll get nominated.' I never thought about the Grammys.

"As for the effect on us? I'm just not going to put that much thought into it either way. If they like it, great, but they aren't part of my world and I really don't consider them 'in' anyway. Grammys are weird. Music is not like a race, where you can look at a stopwatch and see who won. You can't possibly vote as to who is the best musician. I mean, is the best musician someone who is technically brilliant but dead, or someone who is creative and brilliant but a numbskull? The Grammys just are not my goal."

Making friends and influencing the mainstream don't rank among Ferrell's goals, either. Otherwise, he and his three fellow Janes would have produced a more docile debut video - a standard, three-minute, here's-the-band-and-what-we do clip that would have blended into the MTV woodwork.

Instead, they opted to make a video full of nudity. Although MTV agreed to air the clip with "censor bars" and refused to comment on the video, some critics claim the nudity was gratuitous - that it had nothing to do with the song. But Ferrell sees the issue differently.

"It was kind of important to the story," he insisted. "At least the story in my mind. It's like the album cover. They asked me to think about changing that. So I thought about it."

Some may contend that Jane's Addiction is neither deviant nor innovative, but is simply following a traditionally successful rock 'n' roll formula. After all, the Rolling Stones offended every adult on the face of the Earth at one time, distributing questionable albums, offensive films and laughing all the way to the bank. The pattern was repeated, far more calculatingly, by the Sex Pistols. Is Jane's Addiction following suit?

"We're not intentionally provoking anyone," Ferrell said. "But I am going out of my way to avoid attracting some of (the more mainstream music fans). There isn't a point behind our image. I think it's really pretentious to have a point to your music. I'm sure we're pretentious in our way, but if there is a point, and a defined direction about the whole band, and you make the band around that point, then what you've got is a marketing concept - not a band.

"I do care somewhat about sales, but not that much," he continued. "This is a great live band. (We're) incredible live, and I'm not really worried about anything else. I'm worried about the music and our credibility. . . . Really, we're perfect little angels. I don't know what people are talking about."

Nope. Nothing's shocking anymore.

Jane's Addiction will appear Tuesday night at Mississippi Nights.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
March 16, 1989
ROCK MUSIC REVIEW
Jane's Addiction Mixes Metal, Mania
Author: By David Surkamp

IT'S HARD to imagine a more avante-garde metal act than Jane's Addiction, which made its St. Louis debut Tuesday evening at a standing-room-only concert at Mississippi Nights.

The Los Angeles-based quartet, nominated this year for a Grammy for best hard rock/metal performance for ''Nothing's Shocking,'' kicked heavy-metal sounds smack into the New Age, displaying drama and pathos reminiscent of the Velvet Underground or the Doors.

In a drunken performance not equaled since last summer's appearance by Joe Walsh at the Fox Theatre, vocalist Perry Farrell bridged the gap between surrealism and stupidity with as impassioned a delivery as I've seen on the Mississippi Nights stage.

Backing Farrell, bassist Eric Avery, drummer Stephen Perkins and guitarist David Navarro were dead on target with lush, neo-psychedelic textures that were as irresistible as they were manic. It was surprising to find how close the on-stage renditions of the group's songs were to the recorded versions.

Aside from a few diatribes on sex, drugs and politics, Farrell and his pals were as gritty as concrete and as high voltage as cracked lightning. Though only time will tell if it has the staying power, Jane's Addiction refuses to be ignored.