No, dude, that’s not heroin, that’s a heart attack

Perry Farrell once faked a heart attack so no one would know he was kicking heroin, according to a new book by a veteran rock critic.

The book, “The Worst Gig,” asks famous musicians to give nitty-gritty details about the worst stage performances of their lives.

Farrell (the great singer from Jane’s Addiction and Porno for Pyros) told author Jon Niccum, the critic for the Kansas City Star:

“One time in Chicago I was kicking (heroin) really hard. So as opposed to just giving up, I faked a heart attack. I faked a heart attack, and then I faked that it was fake. The truth of the matter is that I couldn’t really stand up that well. So it might have been dramatic, but it couldn’t have sounded very good. Honestly, in the day, you could get away with a lot of the drama thing.”

My favorite story in “The Worst Gig,” though, is from Rich Williams of the “Dust in the Wind” band Kansas, who remembers the nudist colony’s “Nudestock” as being the worst of the worst:

“You get there and it looks like you walked into a Piggly Wiggly grocery store and suddenly everybody was naked. And you’re standing there playing and there’s some guy with a baseball hat and tennis shoes standing in front of you, wiggling and playing air guitar ….”

By the way, correct me if I’m wrong, but I could find only one Vegas “worst gig” in the whole book. Thus, in the lingo of journalism, this book has only one Vegas angle and it has to do with “Closing Time” band Semisonic.

It was when the band was slated to play at the end of the 1999 Billboard Music Awards, but the producers didn’t leave enough time for the gig, and the power shut off after the first chorus.

Sorry, Semisonic, that just isn’t as interesting as faking heart attacks and playing guitars in front of nude male Wisconsinites.