I simply cannot understand the Hillel Slovak thing. Clearly I know a lot about the Chili Peppers, even though I hate them, I spent my life reading about music and I know a lot about bands I have no affection for. I'd read the popular music magazines from the UK and infrequently Rolling Stone and Spin and all that.
So I had read a lot about Hillel Slovak and everyone would talk about what a great guitar player he was and I just can not see it. I remember a quote from some Chili Pepper about Dave Navarro and how of all the guitarists in the Peppers that Dave Navarro was the only one that hadn't been a student in some way of Hillel Slovak. This was said to be a detriment of Dave Navarro.
Maybe you had to be there or something.
I will probably never be a big fan of John Frusciante and I loathe the Peppers, but even I can see that he is a very talented guitar player and even more so, he's capable of writing good music.
I didn't always loathe the Chili Peppers. I didn't know anything about them until the rest of the world did with "Give It Away", and that persuaded me to get Blood Sugar and later Mother's Milk. I got a few of the other albums, I am a huge fan of Parliament-Funkadelic- I mean, huge, this sort of thing is what I listen to when I drink my beers at night- and thought that the George Clinton produced album would be amazing. My point is I dicked around with RHCP.
Any my viewpoint is I wish that John Frusciante had been in a good band, or a band without Keidis, or had been the singer.