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Music at Double Diamond games AspenASPEN — When Perry Farrell formed Jane's Addiction in the mid-'80s, his goal was relatively modest. Farrell wanted only to turn the music world, from radio to concert tours, on its ass, to dispatch the contrived - emblemized in that moment's hair-metal movement - using screaming guitars, ambitious stage shows, and his own flamboyant personality and screeching vocals. Perry Farrell launches activist Satellite PartyBy Stewart Oksenhorn Aspen, CO Colorado January 26, 2007 found at aspentimes.com "In our day, we were fighting against the corporate rock sound of the day," said Farrell by phone. "We were fighting the corporations and fighting a stale sound. We were an underground act trying to make a new sound, a new spin. I guess you'd call it an underground youth movement, and the street was ripe for the taking. We went in with a new look and a new sound and changed the radio format - and MTV - and did our bit."
Farrell is older now. The singer, born Perry Bernstein in New York City, is 47,
and his ambitions have grown with his age. Farrell is about to launch his latest
project, Satellite Party, and this time the aim is to transform a bigger slice
of the world. Satellite Party is, for the moment, a five-piece band, featuring
Farrell; his wife, Etty Lau Farrell, on backing vocals; and guitarist Nuno
Bettencourt, from '80s hard-rock band Extreme.
Farrell has been working with Global Cool,
an organization using various forms of entertainment to help bring out
scientific solutions to environmental problems. Farrell said he will make
"major announcements" at press conferences in Los Angeles and
London, where Global Cool has its two bases, in the weeks ahead.
"You can reclaim the Earth by partying on it. We're not going into a hole; we're going out into the mountains." Farrell sees a further connection between musicians and the environment: Both are endangered. "I say music isn't far from global warming," he said. "Not only are frogs disappearing, but so are musicians. As a concert promoter, my pool of musicians is growing smaller and smaller. Fewer musicians are being groomed and taught. And scientists look at amphibians and reefs being lost, disappearing." •••• Satellite Party will begin its concert existence as a rock quintet, with drummer Kevin Figueiredo and bassist Carl Restivo joining Bettencourt and the Farrells onstage. But Farrell says this is merely the early stages, and he hints that the band and the greater conceptual context in which it exists are poised to grow. On "Ultra Payloaded," which will be Farrell's first post-Jane's Addiction recording project, Satellite Party is joined by guest musicians Flea and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and singer Fergie of Black Eyed Peas, as well as a 30-piece orchestra and the ghost of Jim Morrison. (Morrison makes his presence with an unearthed vocal recording for the song, "Woman in the Window.") "Satellite Party is a full-on orchestra, an orchestra that's growing," said Farrell. "We're starting out with a rock band; we're starting out simply. But on the album, the orchestra plays a major part." The new sonic approach stems from changes in the way people listen to music and the technology that delivers it. Farrell wrote the songs for Satellite Party by starting with synthetic programming, resulting in music that he describes as denser, deeper and more danceable than Jane's Addiction, hewing closer to house music. "The modern sound played in clubs requires that density, that subsonic sound that rock doesn't have," he said. "What you have is this beautiful hybrid combining electronics with rock music. There's a lot of singing, lots of chorus or choir. Jane's was more a stripped-down, three-piece rock band. "The way we listen to music has changed, and sound systems have changed. So there needs to be a new way to make the music and a new way to put on concerts." Farrell used his appearances as DJ Peretz - Peretz is his Hebrew name - to make the transition from hard rock to the brand of music he is playing in Satellite Party. Touring as DJ Peretz was "a great learning experience, like going to college," he said. "When I got in the role of the DJ, I was a recording musician," he continued. "I was never seeing where the music went once it left my hand." Spinning music in clubs allowed him to see how different sounds, different beats per minute, affect a club crowd and are heard through a modern sound system. Satellite Party, though, is intended as something beyond BPMs, beyond sound, beyond music. There's a world to be saved, and Farrell is intent on doing his part. "There's a need for change, and there is a massive change coming," he said. "There's so many things we need to stop and look at. "One of the ways we can do that, that musicians can be a part of the movement, is to put on great concerts and gather the masses." For further coverage of X Games activities, go to www.aspentimes.com/x.
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Perry Farrell appeared in Aspen
as DJ Peretz in 2002, spinning records for a crowd at the old Double Diamond.
Farrell and his new band, Satelllite Party, perform at 10:30 p.m. tonight in
Wagner Park in downtown Aspen. (Stewart Oksenhorn/The Aspen Times)
