Em 1997, o Jane's Addiction lançou no mercado um disquinho chamado Kettle Whistle, que reunia versões demos e ao vivo de suas (grandiosas) canções. Também apresentavam 2 novas musiquinhas (Kettle Whistle e So What!), onde quem tocava o baixo era um rapaz conhecido como Flea.

Henry Rollins deixou estas palavras gravadas no encarte. Para mim, um dos melhores textos já escritos sobre música. Se não for O melhor deles.

"JANE'S ADDICTION was one of the truly great bands. From a decade that will be remembered musically as the one that gave us new wave and all those hair bands, Jane's was a stand-out whose records still deliver and whose shows are still talked about years later.

The band's Warner Bros. efforts, NOTHING'S SHOCKING and RITUAL DE LO HABITUAL, are brilliant but in my opinion never captured the soul- expanding gift that the band delivered live. That being said, I think it would be hard for any band to capture such a brilliant thing in the studio. Jane's was a band that needed to be seen to be heard to feel the full impact. The studio versions of the songs are great, but they're nothing compared to what they became at a Jane's Addiction concert when the songs mixed to the moment. A song like "Three Days" on record is a great piece of work, but when you were standing in front of the P.A. and those big chords pounded you after the drum jam, it was incredibly moving. It was a chapter of your life. Or when the the band stepped down "Mountain Song", it was a body shot. It was about as good as live music gets. There were moments like this all through Jane's concerts. That's why putting out this record is a damn good idea. It's not a ticket to the show, but it's a necessary document of one of the finest live bands there ever was. They came at you on several levels at the speed of sound. Hardcore, working-the- boulevard ferocity, too hip surfer zen aloofness, drugged out stratosphere abandon, served up with an almost childlike naiveté. Terrifying. Unifying. Riot inciting. Easily more thought-provoking than any corny "message band" ever hoped to be. Jane's Addiction pointed it out without pointing to it. In the blink of the eye, they made other bands seem outrageously unhip and outdated, like when the Wizard of Oz got his shit put in check.

A threat to parents everywhere. Speaking of parents, the ja song "Ain't No Right" has more stick-to-your-ribs insight than anything my father ever laid on me.

They used cliché in an almost traditional sense. But when Perry told the band to bring it down so he could say something to the audience boiling at his feet, he really did have something to tell them. It wasn't some rap that he used every night. And the raps he laid on audiences were not sugar-coated. He already expected you to be smart, so he didn't play down to you. He said some cool shit up there. At the same time, he had you in the palm of his hand. Sometimes, he liked to push it. One night that comes to memory is Atlanta 1991 when the band had members of Ice-T's Body Count come up onstage and play Sly Stone's "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey". Perry and Ice, in each other's face. "Don't call me nigger, whitey." "Don't call me whitey, nigger." It wasn't funny. It wasn't cool. It wasn't meant to be.

The gigs, on the outside, had all the trappings of a big rock show. And it was, from the front row to the back. The lighting onstage was epic yet intimate. The stage was adorned with statues, candles and other artifacts pulled from who knows where. It was not thrown together. It was carefully sculpted and arranged. Whoever put it together had something in mind. They cared about you and they wanted to get you off. You felt that you were in on something really cool. If it was in a club or open field, you never felt like you were being treated like a dummy.

The band was a great one to watch. Perry was the cool spaz stick man who looked like large shots of eletricity were constantly passing through him. His voice, often distorted by effects, was part croon, part roar and always pure animal. The drummer, Stephen Perkins, was a pummeling blur of sticks and hair. His fluid power was truly astouding. The guitarist, Dave Navarro, is one of rock's more exciting and gifted players-period. From sheer sonic apocalypse to pure heaven, made it look effortless. And holding the whole thing down was Eric Avery on bass. Solid yet not simplistic, Eric's playing gave the band a crunch and wallop that never plodded, but ebbed and flowed.

As a cog in the major label machine, Jane's Addiction had enough street credibility to be below it, talent enough to have the majors knocking at their door and enough smarts to remain above it, keeping their vision intact. Point is, they never got caught up in it, never became victims of it and NEVER LET THEIR MUSIC SUFFER. You never feel stupid for wearing the shirt even after they scored a hit on MTV and the airwaves with "Been Caught Stealing". A song about shoplifting with an accompainying video that had a man cross-dressing into a pregnant woman in order to be able to hide more stolen goods was definitely not the work of a band that planned on wading quietly into the mainstream.

By the fall of 1991, after headlining the very first season of Perry's brainchild, Lollapalooza, the band called it quits in Hawaii. Band members went their separate ways, some into other bands and some into other things. All was cool but there was never any band that came along with that great chemistry and power to fill every needed link in the music food chain. Several bootlegs CDs of varying quality hit the market in following years.

By now you can tell that I am a big fan of this band. You can kind of tell that they can't do a whole great deal of wrong in my eyes. Maybe it's a good thing that they didn't stay together. Maybe it's best that the band is a time and a place in your life that you can get to any time you hear the records. Maybe it's not about longevity. Maybe it's about giving all you have and when you can't do it anymore, just getting out and watching the damn thing fly off the cliff and explode instead of going down with it.

Jane's Addiction was one of the great ones of our time. You can disagree with me. You can say whatever you want.

BUT YOU WOULD STILL BE WRONG OF COURSE."