One Year On…

The Blog Entry:

“Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Clarification When I quit the band, over a year ago, we were on an indefinite hiatus. There was no drama or anger involved, and the other guys were very understanding. They are supportive of my doing whatever makes me happy and that goes both ways. To put it simply, my musical interests have led me in a different direction. Upon rejoining, and throughout my time in the band, I was very excited about exploring the musical possibilities inherent in a rock band, and doing so with those people in particular. A couple of years ago, I began to feel that same excitement again, but this time it was about making a different kind of music, alone, and being my own engineer. I really love the band and what we did. I understand and value that my work with them means a lot to many people, but I have to follow my interests. For me, art has never been something done out of a sense of duty. It is something I do because it is really fun, exciting, and interesting. Over the last 12 years, I have changed, as a person and artist, to such a degree that to do further work along the lines I did with the band would be to go against my own nature. There was no choice involved in this decision. I simply have to be what I am, and have to do what I must do. Sending love and gratitude to you all.”   Source

 Brief Summary of the past year:

 After the initial shock, I think many people were hoping that the news meant that John Frusciante would return to his solo music and that we could expect to hear more tracks coming from him with due speed. However, anticipation turned to worry and disappointment, as not only did no new material emerge, but there was also no discussion or promise of it. Songs have been released on which he has collaborated, but they are releases of material recorded in the past rather than anything new.

Snipets of news did emerge; for example the singer, Share Watson, somehow ended up recording at John’s home studio and Frusciante produced one of her tracks with one of his songs being sampled:

@Alex27F1 he will be doing a little of both since we’ll b sampling one of his songs never heard b4 from 1 of his shelf albums (Thank you to Alex)

He also appeared on stage with his girlfriend, Nicole Turley, in her band, Swahili Blonde; he was originally credited as being a member of the band on the band’s web pages leading people to believe he would be playing for the whole concert; however, he had since been removed from Swahili Blonde’s literature and played on only one song at the concert:

“About half way through the last song, John finally slipped on stage, quickly grabbing a guitar to rock an amazing solo. The crowd went absolutely insane We were fully awestruck and is definitely a performance I will never forget, because it seemed like we had all been graced with a bit of heaven when he played. The lights went out, the show was over, and John slipped back off stage as quickly as he appeared, a mysterious apparation of musical genius, many of us wondering if we had really just witnessed his amazing presence.”

Thank you to Koki91;  full review HERE

Several photos of Frusciante have been made public throughout the year leading to speculation about his health; a worry that he has relapsed since he has been seen drinking alcohol after years of extremely clean living– a worry which in turn has fuelled rumour and discussion, about a possible returning drug habit.

The most notable ‘appearance’ of John this year was of several photos and a video of him which were posted by Frusciante’s friend on a blog; they were holidaying, together with their girlfriends, in Italy (view HERE)

Fully illustrated account on the forum HERE