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Kay Acoustic 60's Ex John Frusciante
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Guitars can be the tool of genius, the support of creation, a key to inspiration but also the witness of a deep and revealing decay. For a visceral musician like John Frusciante, playing guitar is an organic cry, an essential need and a mode of expression that goes beyond words. In 1994, in the midst of chaos and on the verge of collapse, John Frusciante picked up an orange-tinged acoustic guitar as a last call to his innermost senses. It is this guitar, a Kay K-230, that appears in an interview with VPRO where he appears sweaty and in the grip of his darkest and most fearsome demons.
John Frusciante is one of those virtuoso trajectories violently thwarted by drugs. Exceptional and inimitable guitarist, his ascension within the rock of the Nineties is enamelled by angst and a growing addiction. He sinks into the depths of synthetic substances, hoping to find in these artificial paradises a quietude that his mind would not allow. Often at the edge of the precipice, John Frusciante however always clung to the guitar, like the last and necessary rampart separating him from the absolute nothingness. The 1990's were the years of tragic episodes, seeing him almost die in the fire of his house in the heights of Los Angeles and losing his guitar collection and many albums.
When John Frusciante gave an interview to VPRO in 1994, he was seen in his girlfriend's apartment feverishly clutching that orange guitar with the damaged body. Strumming it with the attachment of a broken man, John Frusciante shows his visceral connection to the guitar by playing in disarming distress. Drained by long months of addiction, he holds one of the last guitars still in his possession after having been separated from his most beautiful vintage instruments (sold like the mythical 1966 Jaguar of Under the Bridge or lost in the fire of his house). This very organic instrument has been the privileged witness of moments of a harsh reality, which the marks on the table remind us of by their gravity. If several changes are to be noted (like the bridge replaced and a microphone installed), its damaged orange table makes this instrument recognizable. It is the witness of the hardest hours of the tumultuous John Frusciante, who later managed to get out of the throes of depression and addiction.
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John Frusciante
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