Out in L.A.: The Red Hot Chili Peppers 1983

The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ scrappy, shirtless, and occasionally pantsless early days in Los Angeles are commemorated in this obsessive history. Duncan, editor of the band’s live archive website, tracks the Peppers from their first show in December of 1982 to their breakthrough a year later when bassist Flea and front man Anthony Kiedis signed with a label (and guitarist Hillel Slovak and drummer Jack Irons quit). It’s a typical rock and roll saga of high school chums with boundless energy; a fresh if tuneless style blending punk, funk, and rap; and a verve for outrageous behavior (at one show the bandmates doffed everything except genital socks, a provocation that Duncan considers “a genius move”). Intertwined are colorful backstories of the clubs they played and of other bands, including Roid Rogers and the Whirling Butt Cherries. Though it bogs down in the minutiae of gigs, even dredging up weather reports to confirm a show date, Duncan’s narrative paints a vivid portrait of the band—a minuscule crowd at a nightclub show “didn’t stop Anthony from diving into the crowd, spinning like a top and spraying the crowd with his beer”—and of the fizzy SoCal music scene. Casual readers may find the excessive detail and adulation of these callow young rockers excessive, but hardcore Peppers fans will lap it up. Photos. (Jan.)