Customer Reviews

Whores: An Oral Biography Of Perry Farrell And Jane's Addiction

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, I really looked forward to this book. I read it in 3-4 hours in two sittings and it was very entertaining. Brendan Mullen wrote an extended article in SPIN Magazine on Jane's Addiction back when their Strays album came out a couple years ago. He states, at the beginning of this book, that band members more or less stopped giving interviews shortly after the albums release so he couldn't get additional information for the book. This forced him to search high and low for other key characters who surrounded Jane's Addiction, along with the band and management, in telling their complete story. It worked. This is a great book and gives an excellent perspective as to what Jane's achieved and what they were up against (primarily themselves). Anyone familiar with Jane's will notice a few familiar quotes and paragraphs from past interviews dating back more than 15 years. Mullen pulls from all sources and paints a good picture of band's impact on the LA music scene at that time and the argument that they created the alternative scene that Cobain and others were able to blow the doors open on a few years later. The development of Lollapalooza is very interesting as well. This book would receive a five star rating had the band done interviews more recently specifically for the book. Unfortunately, they didn't and you have to stick to their old interviews which in many ways is good for catching the moment but not as good for catching the band's perspective on their impact over time. Had they done interviews it may have turned out more like the Crue's DIRT. But Jane's was a much darker band, and you definitely get the feeling here. Actually it sounds like Porno For Pyros was more drug-addled than Jane's, if that's possible. This is a biography and almost gets 4.5 stars. The 5 Star books will be the complete autobiographies by Avery, Perkins, Navarro and Farrell. They'll come in time. Long live Jane's Addiction, one of the last truly great rock 'n roll bands......

As someone who refused to even listen to the latest Jane's album (i'll only acknoledge the first 3!), didn't know what to expect from this book, a cheap attempt to wring some cash from an ever-diminishing fan-base? But Jane's is one of those bands... true innovators, and this book is a terrifically detailed account of their story. I was really impressed by the vast amount of interviewees the author was able to bring together in a very coherent manner, including Casey Niccoli and Eric Avery. A must for true fans.

I loved the oral biography style that Brendan Mullen used in "We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of LA Punk" (which in turn was inspired by the classic in this mini-genre, "Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk"), so I wasn't disappointed with this book. There's no denying that Janes Addiction were as debauched and hard-living a band as they were an amazing and innovative one. "Whores" seems to focus more on the debauchery, although I think the Janes tale doesn't offer anything as memorable as, say, Led Zeppelin's shark incident or Nikki Sixx's many ODs. Still, the reader gets a good sense of Janes Addiction' musical impact and legacy from the band's friends and admirers, many of whom are incorporated here -- some unsurprisingly (Flea, for example) and some whose connections to the band I never knew about (avant-country diva Carla Bozulich was an early girlfriend of Eric Avery's?!). Perhaps most tantalizing is the sketch Mullen draws of the larger mid- to late-1980s scene in Los Angeles that Janes Addiction came from: early LA goth, hair metal, Fishbone, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Thelonious Monster, the Nymphs, local rivals Guns N Roses, etc. I only wish this scene had its own document -- a sequel to "We Got the Neutron Bomb," perhaps?

For Jane's Addiction fans old and new, this is the place to learn about the history of the band, but you'll get it as compilation rather than analysis. Brendan Mullen uses a technique that has become popular in rock journalism - a collection of quick comments by various people describing things in their own words, with only brief set-ups or explanations from the author (reporter). This method may be hip and flashy, but I'm not convinced that it works. Mullen does use the method effectively in a few places by creating juxtapositions in time that cast a harsh light on the band's foibles. A great example is a snippet of an old interview in which Dave Navarro pronounced that he hates to "sell himself," after which Mullen jumps right into Dave's marriage to Carmen Electra on MTV (on the good side, Dave really apologizes a lot for all his peccadilloes). And in general, one real advantage here is that the personalities of the four original members are highly visible, and it sure is good to have Eric Avery's participation.

Sadly, there is something fundamentally missing from this book. Once again the culprit is the presentation style, with its disconnected commentaries and lack of analysis. Mullen relies so much on fuzzy memories from minor scenesters and hangers-on (many with extremely disposable observations) that the crucial insights of the band members, the guys you really want to hear from, are often missing from long stretches of the book. Mullen was one of those scenesters from the early days himself, or wished he was, and this forces a focus on the band's personal lives and the hijinks of their club days. The narrative flows very roughly, often jumping around haphazardly in time, and some important latter-day history is completely missing, such as the Kettle Whistle album and Eric's band Polar Bear.

In the end, this book has lots of opinions and comments on the sound of Jane's music, but knowledge of their creative process is sorely missing. Of the actual songs, only "Jane Says," "Three Days," and a handful of others are even mentioned at all, and the power of the music is basically illustrated with vague explorations of how it has influenced other musicians. That's just not good enough for a so-called history of an incredible band that couldn't help but blaze into brilliance then burn out completely. Binges and infighting can be vaguely interesting stories, but the music is what really matters now. This book can be fun but it misses that crucial focus. [~doomsdayer520~]

For anyone who wants to really understand the underground scene of the eighties in Los Angeles, this book is for you. The book fills in alot of gaps as to who the creative geniuses behind Jane's Addiction were. I grew up in Los Angeles and appreciate the vivid detail the book takes in what the music scene (goth, grunge, punk, hippy) was all about. I also appreciate the mention of Michael Ozair who was a legendary figure at the time - a Ken Kesey of his day with the Shroomsville Family as a sort of Merry Pranksters of the eighties. I had the opportunity to experience the legendary gatherings, parties and events that Ozair put together. Dave Navarro was definitely part of that scene as I remember, seeing him and Ozair together at the gatherings, and Grateful Dead shows. (I also know that both Perry Farrel and Ozair were involved in the Kabbalah scene, and have crossed paths in the late 90's). I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the musical youth culture in which this music grew out of. I was also very happy to see the mention of the early gigs at "Scream", since that is where Jane's Addiction got their earliest cult following. However, I have only rated it with four stars because there was not enough information about what inspired the songs themselves. I would have loved to have seen more about what inspired the songs, lyrics and musical content. Other than that, it was a book that was hard to put down....

One day I was walking through the mall and I saw the book store, and I usually dont go into book stores but I thought "huh, why not lets see whats in there." I went straight to the biography/Entertainment section where I saw this book along with Scar Tissue by Anthony Keidis of The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, so I bought them both. When I go home I immediatly started to read Whores, and even from the begging of the book I could tell that it was going to be a great one. I read this book almost none stop for the next three days and every time I picked up the book I would be amazed.

Whores tells the story of Jane's Addiction, but mainly Perry Ferrall. It leads you through the live's of all the band members, Perry, Dave navarrow, Stephen Perkins, and Eric Avery, tell their sriugles with drug addiction, and music and how they never truly over came it all. It tells the rise and fall of one of the worlds most legendary and greatest bands, Jane's Addiction. Perkins isnt in the story that much he is pretty quite during Whores. Eric Avery, the bass player is all over this book but I found myself somewhat bored with him. Perry is always talking about art or sex, which is fine because he is a rockstar and he can. I found that Dave Navarrow's parts of the book where the most interesting, from the time he was a young boy and his mother was murderd to when drugs totaly took over his life and almost killed him dozens and dozens of times. The book ends in 2002 just after the release of the bands third and last album (hopfuly just so far), Strays, which by the way is a fantastic album!

This is a book that any rock and roll fan will like, it's like behind the music in a book, so do yourself a favor and pick up this fantastic read!

I recently bought the hardback of this book on Amazon because Jane's just released their latest album The Great Escape Artist. While I won't go into that record because I reviewed it here the other day, what this release did was make me pull out all my JA music and memorabilia and this includes the excellent oral biography on JA by Brendan Mullen: Whores.
Basically a "fleshing out" of Mullen's infamous, and at the time the longest, Spin Magazine article to date. I started by re-reading that and having done so it sent me to the book for further investigation. As often happens with Jane's I simply wanted more. There are some really good reviews on this subject, and a couple took the words right out of my mouth. So it'd be silly for me to try and emulate those great view points.
What stood out to me as I re-read the book was how it was representative of and evoked such memories of I time when I lived my own parallel life in SoCal and JA was literally a musical soundtrack to my life starting in 1987. I don't even know how many times I saw the band, at least 30, but everytime I read of a show or an incident I was witness to it brings it all full circle. There was so much happening, and the book really gets that across. JA was one amongst many fantastic bands, artists, women, men, freaks, malcontents, scenesters, etc. Whatever goes was a mantra. That a majority of us survived living at that pace, when many did not, astounds me.
While I too think the book suffers some due to a lack of contemporary interviews at the time of publishing, overall the book is mesmerizing and quite literally something you just can't put down.
I think the Porno for Pyros era, harrowingly depicted in the book, was what continues to haunt whenever I focus on the subject at hand. I was going through my own substance abuse problems at the same time, and a friend and I had a serious road trip incident coming from LA seeing Porno in San Francisco. Weird because they were up to no good then too. At the exact same time. That whole era of the band was something unknown to me at the time and I find it fascinating because up until the book came out and exposed this, I thought everything was hunky dorey.
So enough of that...all I have to say is that if you like the band(s)and all the trippy genius characters of an era long gone pull up a chair, grab WHORES, put on some Psi Com, JA, Porno, Deconstruction, Navarro solo, Banyan, Polar Bear, ? and read or re-read this book.
My one regret is that this book will never be updated due to the passing of the author, the late Brendan Mullen. He is sorely missed. A true icon of Los Angeles.

"Whores" is the late Brendan Mullen's biography of JA and Perry Farrell as told by witnesses and guilty parties. I felt a little ripped off, some of this stuff came from magazine articles (one even verbatim from a Flipside interview), there's no attempt to even make a narrative. The good part is it's easy to read, the down side is that if you've read ANY press on JA you know a lot of this stuff. What I got out of it was some insight into "Jane Says" lyrics and that Dave Navarro really doesn't like the Rolling Stones. Oral histories are great when partnered with great pictures, but there's not really a lot of those either. I was expecting a lot more insight in this book but it's just not there.

If you read the 16 page Jane's Addiction expose that appeared in Spin magazine just a few years ago, and said to yourself "I want to know more" (which I did, probably audibly), then I would highly recommend this book. It is different from many biographies because of the structure of interviews. It is more intimate than a general biography, and the information feels more accurate because it is coming from primary sources.

Couldn't put it down. Great info on a band I was obsessed with, back when they were a force to be reckoned with. Well crafted and full of juicy details. Excellent!