The Stub Project: Red Hot Chili Peppers at The Vic and Jonathan Richman at Lounge Ax – 10.6.1989

like much from 1989, the ink, too, has faded

In my memory, this show was on my 21st birthday, but really it was the day after I turned twenty-two. That makes me wonder if Anthony Kiedis really danced on the table in front of me with just a sock on his cock. In 1989, I thought the Chili Peppers’ sock on a cock days were through, so last year, a PR attempt to sell their lame Abbey Road EP. But, it seems that the desperately exhibitionist ploy that had gotten them noticed had become part of their schtick. Nonetheless, I remember how lucky we felt to witness the spectacle of their sock-covered cocks. What did Chicago do to deserve such an extravaganza? Had the band felt challenged by the ubiquity of Polish sausage?

Still, when the Peppers emerged with only socks to cover themselves for their encore, it was somewhat hard to believe that it was happening, especially when Anthony Kiedis waded through the crowd and ended up on top of the table right in front of us, shaking his sock like Snufalufagus’s snout.

Somehow, it seems like a dream.

Whether fact or fiction, all I know for sure is that I hadn’t had a cock waved in my face like that since my cousin Jimmy made me blow him when I was 9. Could it have been that I was so drunk I was having a flashback?  Or is my remembrance merely wishful thinking? After all, it’s not like you have to be gay to think Anthony Kiedis is a good-looking guy.

In accordance with the unfortunate theme that has developed here, as I look for video of the Peppers from that era, it’s hard to find one that’s not cringe-inducing. No wonder they had to go (almost) full frontal. While it would be somewhat unfair to say that the Red Hot Chili Peppers of the late 80s singlehandedly embarrassed the entire genre of rap and desecrated the catalogs of Jimi Hendrix and James Brown with their ill-conceived covers, it is undoubtedly true that were they to perform covered in Velveeta, it would be redundant.

Despite not having a stub to document it, I do know that right after this show, we – and I’m not exactly sure who we were, although I’m pretty sure it included my friend Nick – went to Lounge Ax to see Jonathan Richman. We were a little late to the show and Jonathan was already into his set. Lounge Ax was a long, narrow room and we were stuck in the back by the bar and people were talking, which did not please Jonathan at all. He chastised the audience, but the talkers kept at it. Why people pay to see a show and then babble through it, I’ll never quite understand in much the same way that I’d have difficulty comprehending anyone’s objections to this extraordinary video: