[Starting with John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things", this series of random postings will be about songs around the 10-minute mark in length that we highly enjoy. Thus, the title for the postings.]
One night in 1988, while listening to the radio in the wee hours, we heard what we unmistakably thought sounded like Jane's Addiction, that band we'd read so much about and were more than curious about finally listening to. We were right: it was their signature tune "Jane Says" and even though this mostly acoustic song did not resemble the art/funk metal that characterizes most of their recorded output, it got us hooked and then some.
As we became enamored with both Nothing's Shocking (Warner Bros-1988) and Ritual de lo Habitual (Warner Bros-1990), the one aspect of the band's various and ear-grabbing sonic details that most impressed us was how Dave Navarro's alternately textured and fiery, virtuoso guitar playing seemed to be the missing link between the Robert Smith/David Ash contingent and the Eddie Van Halens of the world of rock guitar. In a way, we found it to be a kind of continuation of Jimi Hendrix's futuristic approach to both the instrument and the music.
And the best example of this is Ritual's "Three Days" (10:48), a prog-rock influenced masterpiece about a love triangle, that shows off Navarro at his very best. (Check out the 2-minute, six-string fireworks starting at the 4:43 mark and later at 9:37.) Our boundless appreciation for this song is such that quite a few times we've spent more than three days listening to it non-stop. Indeed.
(Kudos to bassist Eric Avery and drummer Stephen Perkins, for their playing throughout, especially the former for the hypnotic bassline that anchors the song's first of three parts.)
[Ritual de lo Habitual cover courtesy of Wikipedia.]
