Niandra Lades and Usually Just A T-Shirt (Review)

In 1994, John Frusciante was heavily struggling with drug addiction. He quit his world-wide famous band Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1992 and spent most of his time working on solo music and doing hard drugs, including heroin, crack, and cocaine. The result of this is heard in his album Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt. The first thing I have to say about this work is that it is not for everyone. Actually, it probably is not for about 80% of you in this class. It's straight up weird. The combination of incredible artistic creativity, amazing skill as a musician, horrible drug addiction, and great loneliness is one that creates interesting results. I personally think it is wonderful. Niandra Lades is actually its own separate album from Usually Just A T-Shirt, but John decided to put them together for the release. John began working on the album when the Chili Peppers were recording the phenomenal Blood Sugar Sex Magik at an abandoned mansion. The overall production of the album, recording and mixing alike, is really interesting. John liked to put backwards guitar solos and melodies in some songs, and there is a crackly quality to most tracks. The utmost emotion was put into this album though, and it has played an important role in expanding my personal creativity. Niandra Lades  features many short songs, with John predominantly playing guitar and singing (occasionally playing piano also). The lyrical content of the songs is somewhat explicit, but the songs are still all really beautiful in a weird, messed up way. Nearly every track is genius in its own way, at least how that's I see it. The guitar work on "My Smile Is A Rifle" is absolutely gorgeous. My favorite track on the entire record ("Your *****'* Glued To A Building On Fire") is another kind of thing where not everyone would enjoy it, but if you are able to you'll see how great of a song it is. Artistic creativity was put before everything else for this record, which I truly appreciate. "Ten To Butter Blood Voodoo" is another unique track that I absolutely love. Usually Just A T-Shirt mostly consists of oddly timed (songs range from 25 seconds to 8 minutes) instrumental guitar tracks with lots of strange effects inside of the track. There is controversy that the listener can actually hear John having sex during one of the songs, but I won't get into that. What's even weirder is that none of the songs on this side of the record have names; they are all untitled ("Untitled #1, Untitled #2...etc.). If you are a weird, artsy person, or if you like to check out interesting music that you've never before heard, then I highly recommend this album for you. Ironically enough, there are some references in the album to things I reviewed last week. On the album's cover, John is imitating MarcelDuchamp's (the guy who did the urinal modern art) pseudonym Rrose Sélavy. Additionally, the album features a cover of the Bad Brains track "Big Takeover".

You cannot find this album on iTunes, and I do not think it is on Spotify either, so your best bet would be to listen on YouTube, or do what I did and pay a huge amount of money to get it from Europe as the album is not available at stores in the US anymore. All I can say is that it is pure beauty.

-N.G.