Wednesday , March 10, 2010
Style Icons: Jimi Hendrix + Red Hot Chili Peppers
It's hard for me to talk about Jimi Hendrix, because he's been around me my whole life. How do you talk about milkshakes, when you've never really not known that there are milkshakes, and they taste like heaven? So I almost always take Jimi Hendrix for granted, but I almost never stop wishing I lived in a more Hendrixy world, where the air's a little more crackly and sandalwood-smoky and dudes dress as flashy and foxy as chicks but in a tuff kind of way. Real life's hard, but the song "Ezy Rider" cures the pain of not living in Imaginationland. "Voodoo Child" cures boredom. "Manic Depression" cures manic depression. Jimi Hendrix is so much better than milkshakes.
Another reason I owe my life to Jimi Hendrix is he gave birth - not spiritually but physically, or maybe it's the other way around - to the Red Hot Chili Peppers (who are my favorite band on god's green earth). Jimi's look was so flamboyant and over-the-top, but it never came off clownish 'cause he's such a bad-ass and so goddamned cool. The Chili Peppers are less cool, and that's why I love them ten times more than everything. They're not clownish either - they'd probably call themselves "knuckleheads," which is something I wish all boys in the world would aspire to be. Over the years their style's mellowed out a little and they basically no longer look like aliens on acid, but they can still dress fly as the sky. To illustrate, here's what Anthony was wearing the three times I've seen him around town:
1) a pair of blue-suede shoes (Pumas, or something like them) and matching baby-blue sweater, plus some real sharp blue trousers and adorable bedhead hair. (This was at Farmers Market, and he sat in the chair next to mine at the communal table, and then I dropped dead into my bowl of tofu bi bim bab.)
2) a blazin'-white blazer over some kind of t-shirt + good jeans
3) this really groovy black sweatshirt with "La Cienega" scrawled in Coca-Cola font across the front, with a button-down dress shirt underneath; another pair of real sharp trousers, which were probably black but I can't really remember.
The last time I saw John Frusciante, at a !!! show, he was dressed up like the ghost of Kurt Cobain in a fuzzy cardigan and t-shirt and corduroys and Pumas and some really geeky glasses. It was a good look for him. And when I saw Flea at a screening of "1960s Butterfly Girl" a couple springtimes ago, he was smartly dressed in some kind of suit that I don't remember well; another time, at the street fair in Silver Lake, he was wearing a Lakers uniform. I've never had a Chad Smith sighting but I'm sure when I finally do he'll be all, "Why'd you crop me out of all the photos in your 'Jimi Hendrix + Red Hot Chili Peppers' style icons post, Liz?" and I'll be like, "Sorry, dude, but you just looked kinda boring in every shot I found. And Anthony looks boring in that pic at the bottom left too, but I'm kind of charmed by his hoodie." And he'll shrug and nod and then we'll go get a beer and it'll be my treat, and we'll all live happily ever after. The End.
Tags: beer, blue-suede shoes, Flea, Jimi Hendrix, John Frusciante, knuckleheads, Kurt Cobain, L.A. rules, love, milkshakes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, style icons
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Posted by Liz in Icons |
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