RECORDING INFO:

Dates: Between May - June 1991 (seven weeks total)
Players: Flea, John Frusciante, Chad Smith, Anthony Kiedis.
Additional Performers: Brendan O'Brien (Mellotron), Gail Frusciante and friends (Backing Vocals), Pete Weiss (jaw harp)
Recorded at: The Mansion, 2451 Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA
Produced by: Rick Rubin
Engineered by: Brendan O'Brien
Mixed by: Brendan O'Brien
Mixed at: Record Plant, 1032 North Sycamore Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
Released on: September 24, 1991

SONGS RECORDED:

• The Power Of Equality

• If You Have To Ask

• Breaking The Girl

• Funky Monks

• Suck My Kiss

• I Could Have Lied

• Mellowship Slinky in B Major

• The Righteous & The Wicked

• Give It Away

• Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik

• Under The Bridge

• Naked In The Rain

• Apache Rose Peacock

• The Greeting Song

• My Lovely Man

• Sir Psycho Sexy

• They're Red Hot
  released on the album "Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik"

• Castles Made of Sand

• Little Miss Lover
  released as bonus tracks on digital music retailers in 2006

• Fela's Cock

• Search And Destroy

• Sikamikaniko

• Soul to Squeeze
  released and endlessly re-released on the Give It Away, Breaking the Girl, Under The Bridge single, the Live-Rare-Remix box, The Coneheads Soundtrack, etc.

• Unknown Song
  Possibly appears in this VH1 documentary which you can hear here. Has never been addressed by the band, and is considered a "Holy Grail" by fans.

The amount of songs recorded is not 100% confirmed. Some sources say 27, some say 25, some say 23. In this interview, Flea mentions recording Hendrix’s Bold As Love, but perhaps he is mistaken, and instead means Castles Made Of Sand, another ballad.

It appears that Search & Destroy was destined to be released on the UK version of the 12" LP, as per this interview, but that is not the case, and they seemed to know it was never going to make the album early on, as seen here.

Flea is said to have recorded demos for several songs on a 4-track at his home; hopefully these recordings, and John and Anthony's I Could Have Lied demo (as mentioned in his memoir), still exist. William Rutten, a Dutch photographer, recalled hearing some demos in 1990.

ALTERNATES/ MIX DIFFERENCES:

Entire album - Blood Sugar Sex Magik sessions tape
The entire album is presented here as a rough mix, so technically the whole thing is different. Some choice examples include:
- Extra xylophone in Apache Rose Peacock
- No guitar in If You Have To Ask
- Extended ending in Funky Monks that goes way past the original fade-out
- Extra guitar noodling at the end of Breaking The Girl
Several tracks - Rock Band DLC package
The album was released on Rock Band and because of the nature of the game, some songs were remixed to finish free of fade-outs. Breaking the Girl, Sir Psycho Sexy and Funky Monks end differently, are edited slightly and do not fade out. Because of this, there is a bit of extra music that was previously hidden or mixed out, most notably the mellotron at the end of 'Breaking the Girl' and the natural ending of 'Sir Psycho Sexy'. These are not always the natural endings of the songs, however, as the extra coda in the 'sessions tape' on 'Funky Monks' shows.
Search and Destroy - The Beavis and Butthead Experience
Beefier remix when the song was re-released in 1994; as it was being remixed, they were known as “Ultra Insane Din Mix” and “Slightly Cleaner Less Level Mix”. It’s not clear which one was used on The Beavis And Butthead Experience.
Under the Bridge, Give it Away, Soul to Squeeze, Breaking the Girl, Suck My Kiss - Greatest Hits
Alternate mastering

More here.

WORKING TITLES:

Me and Terry Teagle = Sikamikaniko

ALTERNATIVE SOURCES:

Blood Sugar Sex Magik Sessions Tape
This recording reportedly circulated among collectors for a few years before finally surfacing in 2006 on the stadium-arcadium.com forums by some anonymous figure. It is a dub from an in-house cassette made part way (probably closer to the end) through the BSSM sessions, apparently for Warner Bros. executives, or for a member of staff (or Rick Rubin) to take home.

Each song is in its very rough mix phase and possibly in mono; levels are not quite correct, quite often studio guides (such as Chad counting out pauses) remain, some guitar solos are missing, sometimes entire guitar tracks are missing, etc. It was recorded to cassette, and thus, lots of tape glitches and hiss are present. If you have a better sounding version of this, please let us know.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik Unmastered/Unsequenced
Another in-house cassette tape that was liberated in 2011. Contains an early tracklisting for the album and some minor mix differences.

LINER NOTES:

COVER COMPONENTS: