Date: Thurs, April 27
Subject:
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com

played a french t.v. show today
it was called tarata
it was a weird set up we played then waited an hour then played again
but the people were nice and it seemed they were really about music
i dont know what is was called though
i love william blake so much

well i wrote that quite a few days ago
since then we have been to copenhagen and rocked our brains out
and hamburg where we also rocked our asses into dirt
and cologne where we played one song on a t.v show
and that was a surreal experience
it was a talk show host whose name i forget but i think he is very
popular in germany
he was a nice man
and when we talked about the band 'defunkt'
he knew who they were and had seen them play
and i was very impressed with him for that
because defunkt is a pretty obscure band
but anthony and i loved them so much and they were really influential
on us when we started
we used to listen to their record 'defunkt' all the time and dance
around skoods living room or wherever we were like crazy
we just danced and danced
and the playing is so great on that record y'all should get it
the leader of the band is joe bowie a trombonist who's brother is
lester the bowie the trumpet player of the 'art ensemble of chicago'
a great and free jazz group
but defunkt is hardcore funk and it drove us crazy
we really loved the guitar playing of kelvin bell
the very first song that we ever wrote called 'out in l.a.' was born
from me doing my best to copy the groove of the song 'defunkt' off of
the album 'defunkt'
john frusciante told me that henry rollins says that the defunkt
album 'thermonuclear sweat' is better than the album defunkt
but i say hogwash
it is not better
anyways we were on that show in germany
and it was cool
but we were anxious to get to italy so we hightailed it last night to
milan
and i ate spaghetti and watched the anchor man had some silly laughs
and went to bed
i then went out this morning and bought a dress for my daughter and
now i am back in this hotel room listening to herbie hancock

i still love william blake alot
i have been looking at all his art it is so great
you can find lots of it on the internet
i wonder if it is possible for anyone to be so pure and great and
powerful in this modern world...
actually patti smith is

also i saw a thing on t.v. this morning about a young boy who had
muscular dystrophy
he died in his teen years and he was a poet
and his poems spoke of yearning for peace and unity among all of us
and of strength of spirit
i cant remember his name because i am a dope
jimmy carter and maya angelou were on cnn talking about him this morning
and when they read his poems i wept because they were so fucking good

maya angelou gave the best parenting advice i ever heard

she said

'your only job as a parent, is to see the sun rise and set every time
your child walks into the room'