4- Perry Farrell & Casey Niccoli at home in Korea Town LA - 1988
Perry’s ex-girlfriend before we started dating.
She died of a drug overdose at 19.
She was everything: perfect beauty, talent, brains, style, personality, electricity.
3- This photo was on the inner sleeve of Ritual;
Casey Niccoli is an artist who, according to the more or less official biographies of Jane's, has been fundamental for the birth and early growth of the band since its beginnings.
Perry Farrell's girlfriend in the mid-80s, a period in which Jane's Addiction was born in Los Angeles, Niccoli is responsible for the choice of the name of the group and the titles of records such as "Nothing's Shocking" and "Ritual De Lo Habitual".
Stylist of the band, in the first live shows Farrell borrowed her clothes to perform live, director of the videos, in particular "Been Caught Stealing" with which Jane's debuted on MTV, author of the documentary "The Gift" published on VHS after the first breakup of the band, Niccoli is to be considered to all intents and purposes the first creative director of the project.
The cover of "Ritual De Lo Haibtual", a record released in 1990, portrays a sculpture of Perry Farrell, Casey Niccoli, and their friend at the time the teenager Xiola Blue naked embraced in a bed and celebrated a weekend of drugs and sex consumed by the three later also remembered in the song "Three Days". A few months ago bassist Eric Avery had posted a photo of the whole band in front of the work found in a warehouse: only Casey Niccoli was missing for whom on that occasion there was not even the classic tag on the post.
After the end of the relationship with Farrell in 1993, Niccoli began a period of great difficulty related to drug abuse, conditions that led her to find an agreement with the musicians through which she renounced all rights to the works created for the band in exchange for a small amount of money:
Desperate and homeless, I accepted a small amount of money out of court to compensate me for a job I was never paid for: money that barely lasted a year. In return, I gave up all the rights to profit from the art or any future profits related to the band. At that time the band had broken up and they told me they would never reunite. But that's not what happened. As the band's success grew, I shrunk into the depths of addiction.
As the years went by, I couldn't ignore the disturbing changes. Perry and I haven't spoken since 1999. Without any direct communication, I noticed that Perry slowly stopped mentioning my name in interviews about the band's history and artwork. What he once called "we" became "me." I was completely deleted from the band's history on Wikipedia. The most worrying part was the slow erosion of my artistic imprint, coupled with my total lack of access to the art itself that I created.
July 24th, 2024 the release of the unreleased "Imminent Redemption" is scheduled to be unveiled on-stage last May at the Bush Hall in London, and in March last year the band had given the lucky attendees in Bakersfield, California, the first date of their American tour, "True Love", their first song in over ten years.
In this reunion also takes part the original bassist Eric Avery, who had instead skipped the previous returns of 2003 ("Strays") and 2011 ("The Great Escape Artist") but another equally important figure for the history of Jane's Addiction is missing.
Casey Niccoli is an artist who, according to the more or less official biographies of Jane's, has been fundamental for the birth and early growth of the band since its beginnings.
Perry Farrell's girlfriend in the mid-80s, a period in which Jane's Addiction was born in Los Angeles, Niccoli is responsible for the choice of the name of the group and the titles of records such as "Nothing's Shocking" and "Ritual De Lo Habitual".
GIRLS TO THE FRONT
Filmed in 1990, during the recording of Jane’s Addiction’s album “Ritual de lo Habitual”, the film was released three years later on VHS. Niccoli also directed several music videos for the band, including , “Classic Girl,” “Stop,” “Ocean Size,” and the award-winning “Been Caught Stealing.”
