And Now For Something Completely Safe (For Children)

A lot drove the internets crazy this weekend, and it didn't let up when the week started.

After numerous online and regular-life talking about it, I'm too drenched to even attempt to write about the Woody Allen rape thing (did he do it? did he not?), except to say this: we don't know, and there are no facts proving nor disproving. It's more moral to believe the victim than the accused, which is why we have courtrooms and legal systems, but people's opinions on this matter are just a reflection of their own prejudices. I'm trying not to have any. So I'm taking a rain check on this one.

I will, however, go ''light'' and talk about the Super Bowl halftime show, starring Bruno Mars and featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers, doing the opposite of lip-synching - instrument-synching:

Flea explained today that having live bands play is too much of an intangible for the NFL (unlike, say, a quarterback sack that would concuss a player and have him removed from the game, obliterating his team's chances of winning, or a half-hour power outage), so they use play-back for the instruments and only go live with the vocals - and the Chili Peppers deliberately chose not to pretend to plug in out of respect for their fans.

But playing with - and second fiddle to - Bruno Mars was ok with their fans?

The NFL should wise up and learn from this, and have bands go live. Or just go all-out theater and run scenes from Macbeth or re-enact Al Panico's speech from Any Given Sunday. Or just show more fucking ads, it's what most people are tuning in to see anyway.

Video Of The Week: Atoms For Peace

The name of the group may ring a bell: it's from a song off Thom Yorke's solo album.

That name may ring a bell: he's the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Radiohead.

That name may also ring a bell, as it's taken from a Talking Heads song title (off the oft-overlooked True Stories album).

So... who are Atoms For Peace? Well, first and foremost, they're Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano). Their first few gigs consisted of them playing his solo record, a cover or two, and a Radiohead b-side, then they stated incorporating new songs, until they had enough to make an album, Amok.

The band's center and sound engineer is none other than Radiohead's long-time producer Nigel Godrich (keyboards, synthesizers, guitars), and their backline is rounded up by Flea on bass (from the Red Hot Chili Peppers), mercenary drummer extraordinaire Joey Waronker (who has filled in for the regular drummers of Beck, R.E.M., Charlotte Martin, Smashing Pumpkins and The Vines, as well as being a one-time session drummer for Paul McCartney, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, P!nk, Norah Jones and many other past and present greats), as well as percussionist Mauro Refosco (from the band Forro In The Dark, and RHCP's tour percussionist).

You may call them a supergroup.

This song, Before Your Very Eyes, is their fourth single overall, and the third one from Amok - the first release was a stand-alone double-A-side consisting of Tamer Animals and Other Side. The video is reminiscent of Radiohead's Kid A-era videos, barely showing the musicians, mostly consisting of digitally-constructed landscapes blending water, mountains and buildings. Like the song, it's no longer ''original'' per se, but it's still pretty cool.

Video Of The Week: Red Hot Chili Peppers

They were a truly important voice in music from 1988 until 1999; they were influential from 1983 to 1991. They have recorded one of the best albums of all time, Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

After BSSM, though, the once-experimental, punk-meets-funk outfit Red Hot Chili Peppers started getting repetitive, with each funk song resembling Give It Away and all ballads sounding too much like Under The Bridge, but for the moment of an incredible record, they came up with 17 (!!) incredibly different, all great songs full of witty and/or intelligent lyrics, nervous and funky bass lines, inventive guitar work and percussions worth a record of their own.

One song they'd never try to replicate was Breaking The Girl, a rare 6/8-timed song in their catalog, with building beats and guitar chord progressions reminiscent of Led Zeppelin's Middle Eastern-influenced songs best captured when Robert Plant and Jimmy Page went Unledded.

The lyrics detail a rocky relationship - classic ballad material - but with the music, it just created a whole different universe for it to live and evolve in. The video, directed by acclaimed director and (war) photographer Stéphane Sednaoui (who also directed their video for Give It Away) is an experimentation in saturated colours, not unlike his previous work with U2 (Mysterious Ways) a year earlier, and adds yet another layer to the whole ordeal:



At a time where pop/dance videos shot in front of a white background were clinging on for their life, grunge bands were concentrating on live clips or two-tone videos full of close-ups and Guns N' Roses were waving the 8-minute epic flag by themselves, Breaking The Girl stood alone as a work of art, a testament to the song's authors for creating such an oddity that was still right where it needed to be.

Video Of The Week: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Sure, I made the Red Hot Chili Peppers the Video Of The Week just a short while ago, but The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie is a funky song - and it'll be banging from all the cars and radio stations until winter arrives.

So before we start hating it after too much over-exposure, why not appreciate it for what it is: a much-welcome break from all the rap songs that sample the same fucking 1990 techno beat and/or that Harry Belafonte song, and the shitty auto-tuned pop starlets currently polluting our ears. Yes, all of you.

Enjoy the Peppers on L.A. rooftops, at the beach, marvel at their big-breasted fans (0:52, 1:28) and keep telling yourself ''I can't believe Anthony Kiedis grew a porn mustache!''

Video Of The Week: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Why not two straight posts on the Red Hot Chili Peppers?

They have made one of the best records of all time, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. But they've also gone to great lengths to try to reproduce its hit songs over and over again (Scar Tissue, Universally Speaking, Desecration Smile, most of the By The Way record, all of Stadium Arcadium...), something that really gets on my nerves.

But in 1995, when they'd lost track of guitarist John Frusciante, they recruited Jane's Addiction axeman Dave Navarro for their One Hot Minute album, a departure from their earlier sounds, more experimental, and a bit heavier.

If I were to grade it, it wouldn't come close to BSSM or Mother's Milk, but their quest for a new sound has to be applauded and respected - and it gave us this little ditty - Aeroplane, and its fun video:

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Back On Track?

After a decade of releasing albums with only two types of songs - Under The Bridge-like ballads or Give It Away-style semi-funkers - and the most boring double-album of all time, Stadium Arcadium, it seems the Red Hot Chili Peppers are back to doing what they do best: original, actually funky tracks reminiscent more of 70s-funk made today than L.A.-pop and stupid lyrics.

Listen to the first track here:

Then again, in an interview on Gibson Guitars' website, Flea mentioned they recorded 70 songs for their next release, and didn't necessarily put the ''best'' ones on it. And no other song sounds like The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie, so I wouldn't go out and recommend it quite yet.