Funny thing about heroin and rock and roll…it’s a parasitic relationship. Even while destroying the person, it’s toll and the mental anguish of addiction tends to find itself surfacing in wonderful and tortured songs…or sometimes, as is the case with RHCP, a bunch of awesome party music. While the Chili Peppers have experienced a tremendous amount of commercial success since kicking their habits, I think it can be argued that they made their best music when they were high.

I first came to know of the Chili Peppers in the 8th grade when Uplift Mofo Party Plan came out. The guy that sat in front of me in my economics class had it on cassette and let me take it home and copy it one day (that’s right kids, the double cassette boombox…the original Napster). I had never heard anything like that at the time and I was instantly in love with the band. That love has never fully vanished and to this day I buy every album they release but, outside of a handful of tracks on Californication, I’ve been largely unimpressed with anything post drugs Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic.

I’ve been packing up my house for the move (this Friday!), and while putting away my cds Uplift caught my eye and I decided to throw it in. Listening to it for the first time in years I was surprised to see how much of my passion for the album had stood the test of time. Easily the best thing the Peppers ever did. It really makes you wonder what would have come from these guys if Hillel would have lived and Jack would have stayed with the band. Uplift has pretty much been my de facto packing album this week, and it inspired me to toss Mother’s Milk and Blood Sugar in the cd changer, too, for some random action.

Turns out, my passion for Mother’s Milk really hasn’t stood the test of time as well as Uplift did, but hearing Blood, Sugar makes me feel like an 18/19 year old all over again. I can remember hearing “I Could Have Lied” for the first time and thinking the guitar solo in that song was the greatest guitar solo ever written. It does such a fabulous job of capturing the pain of the song, while keeping the simplicity of it intact. I still love to hear it.

I’ve pulled a few other cds from my rack that I have not listened to in 5+ years so maybe there will be a few more of these memory lane posts in the future.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Backwoods
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Walkin’ On Down The Road
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Organic Anti-Beat Box Band

Red Hot Chili Peppers - I Could Have Lied