Flea Helen Burns Patti Smith

This title might make you go like Whaaaaat? Now he's lost his mind and drifted completely into mindless drivel. But no! That's totally not the case. And it also doesn't matter if you like The Red Hot Chili Peppers. But if you do you will know Flea. Yes, their bassist.

In the early nineties I was a big fan of the band and listened to everything they put out up until the Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic record. If memory serves me right the follow up to that was One Hot Minute which marked the time of me losing interest. Today I listen to them very scarcely but still think they are an awesome band because of the integrity of each and every current and former member.

Flea's involvement with the Silverlake Conservatory of Music plays right in with that integrity. Unfortunately I cannot check out anymore details about this organisation because they decided to have a flash application on their start page which my device is not able to display. Bummer. But the name alone sounds like it's a good thing.

Ok. So much for the first part of this post's title. The second part is Helen Burns which is the name for Flea's solo ep that I only learned about today because I don't follow the guys tweets which is something I'll be changing very soon. The music on that thing is nothing like that of the RHCP but rather some "soundscapes that are very emotional for" him. He also writes "it is a mostly instrumental, weird and arty record".

If you didn't cringe at this last sentence you might be interested that it's available for download at a price you can choose here. That all proceeds will be donated to the SCM. And that Patti Smith is featured on it. This last piece of detail alone makes me want to have these recordings but as you might know I'm not a fan of downloads. So what to do? Well, Flea wouldn't be Flea if he didn't know how to do things right and boy does he do this right. Although I have to say that $75 seems a little steep for a 12" ep even if it's on 180g vinyl, autographed by Flea and comes with a piece of bass string that the man himself actually played. Who gives a shit about this crap? I guess I do. Sounds like a nice package for a good cause. I think I should get my order in soon. Limited to 900. Can you dig it?

Check out my source and an early interview here.