The 500 - #310 - Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 310

Album Title: Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Genre: Funk-Rock, Rap-Metal, Funk-Metal, Alternative

Recorded: The Mansion, Los Angeles, California

Released: 1991

My age at release: 26

How familiar was I with it before this week: Very

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #186, Moving up 124 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Breaking The Girl

In the spring of 1992, I was finishing my degree at Western University in London, Ontario, while working six or seven days a week at East Side Mario’s restaurant. The Canadian- based chain of casual restaurants "specializes" in Italian-American "cuisine". It is to Italian food what Taco Bell is to Mexican fare -- it's not authentic, or particularly good, but it is inexpensive and acceptable. The location where I worked was wildly popular and busy with crowds of all ages from lunch until close.  

It was an exhausting pace, but was one of the most financially lucrative times of my life. In fact, it was one of those economic bubbles of youth that one intuitively knows is unsustainable. Like any bull market you just know the phase will pass.  Making hay while the sun shines, I managed the restaurant four nights a week for a decent salary, free food and beer and picked up shifts on profitable Friday and Saturday evenings as bartender.

By far, the most exhausting day was Sunday, when I was scheduled, twice monthly, to open the restaurant and run the bar for Sunday Brunch. I needed to arrive by 7 a.m. to let the cooks into the building. Often, I had closed the restaurant five hours earlier. Yes, I debated sleeping there to steal a few extra minutes of shut-eye.

Much like custodial staff and administrative assistants are essential to the smooth operation of a school, cooks are the engine of any restaurant. Without cooks, the doors can’t open. 

Gratitude works.

For night cooks, liquid lubrication at the end of a shift – usually ice-cold beer.

For groggy-eyed and sometimes hungover Sunday morning prep cooks – fresh hot coffee and letting them play their music loud, until the restaurant opened for business.

That spring (1992) their track selection was my introduction to an eclectic mix of genres that would grow in popularity over the next five years. It was on those groggy but hectic mornings that I first heard grunge, rap-rock and funk-metal. Much of it was loud, raw, fuzzy, unkempt and honest. Not unlike the punk rock movement of 15 years earlier, this music was both alarming and refreshing. Every Sunday, the restaurant vibrated to sonic booms I had never heard before – Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone, Green River, Soundgarden, Babes in Toyland, Mr. Bungle and Mudhoney.

One of the early-morning prep-cooks was an 18-year-old, long-haired skateboarder nicknamed “Boog” – a seemingly unfortunate moniker, but one that he embraced like a rare jewel. Boog blasted many cassette-tape selections through the kitchen boom-box, but was particularly keen on Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik, the fifth release by Los Angeles-based funk-metal rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Red Hot Chili Peppers (1992) (l-r) John Frusciante (guitars)
Chad Smith (drums) Flea (bass) and Anthony Kiedis (vocals)

I was already a “Peppers” fan. As I wrote in an October, 2020, blog post, I was introduced to them in the mid-80s by my good friend Paul Dawson. I had purchased most of their discography, but that November, 1991 , release had thus far escaped my attention. There was something markedly different about the record and it went quickly into heavy rotation during study and workout sessions.

Peppers performing at Lollapalooza (1992)

Later that spring, I bought Funky Monks on video-cassette, a documentary filmed during the making of the record.  Significant changes had been made to create Blood Sugar Sex Magic. In order to achieve the re-shaping after several commercial failures, legendary producer and Def-Jam Records co-founder Rick Rubin agreed to work with the band. Rubin suggested that the group cohabitate for one month at his four-bedroom studio, The Mansion, during production.

The Mansion is an iconic house in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles. Built in 1918, it was originally the home of Golden Age Hollywood star Errol Flynn. Magician/escape artist Harry Houdini had also used the pool area to rehearse his illusions and escape-routines while living nearby.

Errol Flynn

It is also rumoured to be haunted. In the summer of 1918, the son of a wealthy furniture store owner pushed his lover to her death from the balcony. The grisly lore reportedly troubled Pepper’s drummer, Chad Smith, so much that he refused to spend the nights there with Rubin and band mates. Smith has denied this claim, saying he preferred to go home to his wife. However, his chums, particularly guitarist John Frusciante, continue to lightheartedly needle him.

The Mansion Recording Studio

The record was completed at a rapid pace compared to previous efforts. Lyricist and singer Kiedis focused much of his writing on sexual references and bawdy innuendo, but the album’s biggest hit, Under The Bridge, was a dirge about his heroin addiction. The song told the story of Kiedis’ lowest moments, when he literally lived under a bridge in downtown Los Angeles.

Under The Bridge - Single Cover

Blood Sugar Sex Magic went on to achieve worldwide popularity and critical acclaim and is recognized as a seminal record in the alternative rock movement that swept the early 90s – an evolution that a skateboarding dishwasher named Boog recognized far earlier than I.