Acid Trip.
Children, Eddie Murphy's Netflix comeback to America, 'Dolemite Is My Name' isn't your only glimpse of 1970's Los Angeles. Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea's pre-RHCP memoir 'Acid For The Children' (a 'Scar Tissue' autobiography this is not) is ridden with it. In this 'Acid' reflect of just kids, percussed by a perfect, poetic prologue from the one and only Patti Smith herself. A beautiful book, with the off-key rhythm and blues from a man that always held the bassline like the Lakers he coveted courtside (from Showtime's Magic and Kareem, to LeBron and this new Anthony Davis Hollywood dream (you catch his fellow superfan Ice Cube like season promo?)), but was never afraid to go the Miles of a trumpet solo himself ahead. May we suggest blaring this out in audiobook form? Sure we've been touting that recently like a 30 day free trial. From Kareem himself accompanying this writer vocally whilst alone in Tokyo, to 'Rocketman' Taron Egerton filling in for the prelude and epilogue of the man he played like 'Me' for Elton John's epic life story (and now I have a Flea in my room). But with Flea's legendary and unmistakable cadence you get to hear and feel the impression of every inflection. There's just something about a writer narrating their own work. Just like biographies are so horses mouth better when you put an 'auto' in front like L.A. gridlock at rush hour. Choking up about childhood stories as he tells testimony of the loss of his dear Grandmama making us all all wish he could call up there to our own. This is as real as it gets for the raw life of a man next to his frontman who could make the acid twins of Aerosmith look alkaline. Sweet child of mine this acid test burns with nostalgia and forever memory...for you.
"That man just signed your C.D.", my radio D.J. friend text me (thanks Jon) as I was nosebleed watching Flea walk off stage after the Red Hot Chili Peppers encore on his hands during their 'Stadium Arcadium' tour. I've always felt ink linked like a tattoo or band t-shirt temporary one to Flea's Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Maybe it's because the real best time of your life-my college years-were scored by the undeniable back-to-back like Magic ("yeah...YEAH") soundtrack of the Chili's Autumn like return to Frusciante and form with 'Californication' (1999) and 'By The Way' (2002) when Sony, Discman and rocking one CD all day portably instead of an iPod (or what is it now? Spotify?) was still a thing like MTV and their music videos like the ones for these two titans title tracks where as Hollywood groundbreaking as they were L.A. cool. Or maybe it's just because like me Flea and his itching Peppers are red hot Laker fans for life (we are probably watching the Oklahoma game right now at the same time as I type in Tokyo. Him somewhere in California or wherever in the world tour he's rim rocking like a Globetrotter). From Showtime salad day salutes to Kareem to being kings today like LeBron on rocks throne next to the Foo Fighters...their Boston Celtics...who they can't help but love. Hearing (yep I'm still on that listening tip...despite all that rock in my earbuds) Flea talk about the silk smoothness of a Jamaal Wilkes jumper is as poetic as this sportswriter wishes he could Jim Murray get, as beautifully nostalgic as the memory itself. The game as one. One that Flea describes like the bass or jazzman's trumpet that could still take him higher than any narcotics influence. Yeah drugs are abused through this narrative. Friendships are lost and life comes at a cost. But sobering up to find the real substance in life away from the drugs, Flea shows you what really works (the only thing this man doesn't know is shirts). And because of it takes us all to a higher ground.
'Me' personal like Elton John's moving memoir. As beautiful as 'The Beautiful One's' for Prince's unfinished symphony of an autobiography the man behind the man in the Red Hot Chili Peppers completes a banded together big-three of musical books for your festive feeling wish list this Christmas with the best foreword of the trinity and on a whole just as Springsteen tough as the rest for a man who has had arguably just as important and indelible mark on music for almost as many decades of the 'Crocodile Rock' and 'Purple Rain', from Dodger Stadium to the fabulous Western Forum. And in its audible form Flea shows just why he got the gig acting in films like 'My Private Idaho' with Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix or 'The Big Lebowski' with The Dude and Jesus for a hot minute (and be sure to check him out in his brutally most recent 'Boy Erased' and that unmistakable vocal announcement in 'Toy Story 4' baby driver). Scripting his own life stories, scene and wrap, even hinting at a chronicles sequel and getting the legendary likes of Tony Curtis in the studio and just delivering all his "BOOM, BAP" beat poet, Kiedis rap with his one of a kind energy that can't be spoken by anyone else...as you'll end up reading it off the page as him anyway. You really would want him reading you a bedtime story children. But back to the future like another film this guy starred in before it all began, the Hollywood kid, by way of Melbourne, Victoria revisits his Australian roots down under as this book is all about family and the enduring legacy of the friends who in turn become that too. So even if we don't get Chili...at least until the epilogues genesis, we still get to see some of the Ant man himself. As Flea springs on his decades upon decades making friendship with Kiedis. You man fondly recognise some of the stories from Anthony Kiedis 'Scar Tissue' book...retold with Flea's own signature style. From the hilarious (like the time Anthony got them both skis at a lodge by overcoat and sunglasses dressing up as a woman and putting on his best mother's milk impression...whilst high), to the heartbreaking (like the time he hightailed off apartment rooftops into swimming pools and missed the water by...this...much). What is this? One of the best books you'll read all year and rock anthologies ever. Get dosed with this because after one tote this bohemian behemoth beauty is bliss. Michael Peter Balzary's corrosive for the young punks. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
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