The Red Hot Chili Peppers unplugged

In case you don’t pay attention to such things, there’s a miniature scandal swirling around the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.

Close examination of the footage reveals that the bass and guitar weren’t plugged in.

Red Hot Chili Peppers unplugged

Flea, the Peppers’ bassist, came forward and admitted that they used a pre-recorded track, and offered various excuses and explanations. I’m surprised to find myself writing about this, since if there’s anything I care about less than the Super Bowl, it’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But I was struck by Flea’s prevaricating; the whole thing points up the strangeness of live music in the age of technology.

It’s no big mystery why we’re so uncomfortable with lip-syncing. The composer Murray Shafer coined the word “schizophonia” to describe the alienating effect that technology has had on music: we hear sounds disconnected from the accompanying sights, both of which are disconnected in time from the original performances. Furthermore, unless you have inside knowledge, you may have no idea how those sounds are being produced, or by whom. Live performance is a refuge in these confusing times: there are the people and their instruments, you can see what they’re doing and at least sort of understand it. If you’re expecting a reassuringly “real” performance, it’s a grave betrayal to find out that you’re actually seeing a bunch of people miming to a recording.

The thing is, though, lip-syncing is not intrinsically bad. Some pop artists have confronted the reality of schizophonia and turned it into an essential part of their art. For example, everybody loves Michael Jackson’s performance of “Billie Jean” on the Motown 25th Anniversary broadcast.

Michael is transparently performing to pre-recorded music. Even though his lip-syncing is flawless, you can tell that he’s not singing live if you’re at all familiar with the recording. Furthermore, there’s a band onstage, and they aren’t playing. Why is this okay? I think it’s because Michael is really doing a dance performance, not a musical one. Every muscle in his body is at work in the choreography; why should he make an exception for his face? The schizophonia is so obvious that we have no expectation of live singing and playing, so there’s no betrayal. And what a dance performance! Who could be unsatisfied by it?

So what’s so bad about the Chili Peppers’ fakery? The problem is that their fans are expecting “authenticity.” The Chilis’ period of maximum cultural relevance, the early nineties, coincided with the exact point that rock stopped being coextensive with pop culture. The nation’s rock fans are still smarting about it. There’s a universal sense among rockists that music used to be “real,” and now it’s “fake;” that it used to require “talent,” and now it’s all just technology. Not with the Chilis, though. Anthony Keidis aside, these guys are technically skilled musicians, Flea especially. The Chilis were supposed to be on the rockists’ team; what a disappointment to find out that they’re just as fake as the rest of the pop stars.

None of this controversy has touched Bruno Mars, who performed most of the halftime show. Why doesn’t anyone care whether or not he and his band were playing live or not? I mean, Bruno is as “authentic” as a pop star gets in 2014. He’s a “real musician” — in addition to his considerable singing ability, he’s also an excellent drummer. His music has a cozily familiar Motown vibe, with horns and B3 organ and other organic timbres. Nevertheless, I guess the NFL decided that he’s too popular with teenage girls, or too biracial and androgynous, or something, and they needed to balance him out with the Chili Peppers so as not to alienate their core constituency of middle-aged white guys.

Here are Flea’s excuses for the Chilis’ betrayal:

When we were asked by the NFL and Bruno to play our song Give It Away at the Super Bowl, it was made clear to us that the vocals would be live, but the bass, drums, and guitar would be pre-recorded. I understand the NFL’s stance on this, given they only have a few minutes to set up the stage, there a zillion things that could go wrong and ruin the sound for the folks watching in the stadium and the t.v. viewers. There was not any room for argument on this, the NFL does not want to risk their show being botched by bad sound, period.

Fair enough.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers stance on any sort of miming has been that we will absolutely not do it.

Except for this one time.

The last time we did it (or tried to) was in the late 80’s, we were thrown off of ‘The Top Of the Pops’ television program in the U.K. during rehearsals because we refused to mime properly, I played bass with my shoe, John played guitar atop Anthony’s shoulders, and we basically had a wrestling match onstage, making a mockery of the idea that it was a real live performance.

You guys were so naughty. I guess not anymore.

We take our music playing seriously, it is a sacred thing for us, and anyone who has ever seen us in concert (like the night before the Super Bowl at the Barclays Center), knows that we play from our heart, we improvise spontaneously, take musical risks, and sweat blood at every show.

Musical risks? Are the Chilis the alt-funk Grateful Dead?

So, when this Super Bowl gig concept came up, there was a lot of confusion amongst us as whether or not we should do it, but we eventually decided, it was a surreal-like, once in a life time crazy thing to do and we would just have fun and do it.

Did the giant pile of money they offered you figure into the equation? (update: I’ve learned that they didn’t get paid at all. Still, the high profile gig can’t have hurt them financially.)

We decided that, with Anthony singing live, that we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording specially for the gig.

Why bother? What difference does it make? Who even noticed? Why not just mime over the stems from Blood Sugar Sex Magik?

We recorded a track for the day, just banged one out from our hearts that was very like in spirit to the versions we have been playing live the last few years with our beloved Josh on guitar.

Oh, I get it. A spontaneous, risk-taking performance occurred; just not at the same time as the one on TV.

For the actual performance, Josh, Chad, and I were playing along with the pre recorded track so there was no need to plug in our guitars, so we did not. Could we have plugged them in and avoided bumming people out who have expressed disappointment that the instrumental track was pre recorded? Of course easily we could have and this would be a non-issue. We thought it better to not pretend.

Why have instruments around your necks at all then?

It seemed like the realest thing to do in the circumstance. It was like making a music video in front of a gazillion people, except with live vocals, and only one chance to rock it.

This is the nub, right here. A live music video is a perfectly legitimate thing to do; it’s precisely what Bruno Mars did. His visual presentation comes straight from the Michael Jackson school: tightly choreographed, but in a way that conveys effortlessness, cool, spontaneity. Bruno’s stage show is simple, but effective: guys in shiny suits dancing. It worked for James Brown fifty years ago, and it works just as well now. Bruno performs the same James Brown move (called what?) twice, identically, and both times it’s fresh to death. If the Chilis were going to do a good live music video, they should have done something more interesting than just jump around with their shirts off. Maybe recreate the “Give It Away” music video, with the silver body paint and twirly banners?

I understand the Chilis’ desire to be as “real” as possible under the circumstances. But they went about it the wrong way. Schizophonia has been an inescapable part of the music experience since the invention of wax cylinders. Unless the musicians are physically in the room with you, there’s going to be some fakery involved. The most authentic response is to put forward a well-crafted illusion. The Chili Peppers’ strategy is like a bald guy with a combover. Bruno Mars’ approach is more like a fabulous green sparkly wig. No wonder he seems less silly.